Originally Posted by
pirossalma
For me, WN is #1, becasue of the "every seat is award seat".
Having completly useless miles with other airlines, I really enjoy to get immediate satisfaction 10 minutes after getting my credit card bill.
Disclaimer:
Seats/features do not really affect me. All my flights are either under 2 hours or consist under 2 hours legs.
This is a common misconception. The slogan "every seat is an award seat" can be applied to other US airlines as well - UA being one of them and AA another.
Since the old RR 1.0 rewards are on their way out, people seem to forget those. But you can't try and tell me that booking an "anytime" award seat with points is more advantageous than using a standard RR 1.0 award. Any ticket over $137 is better off redeemed using that award vs. using points.
Other carriers adopt the same philosophy - at the lower level, they limit the number of seats but you can always get a seat for twice the amount.
Using points on WN may not be double but the idea is the same, so your notion that WN should be #1 because "every seat is an award seat" is misguided.
Yeah, you may have orphan miles in other FFPs just like I have so little points in WN RR 2.0 that dividing them by 70 gives me such a low dollar figure I can't possibly buy a ticket with it.
But there is something that sets apart WN elite status recognition from other programs, i. e. Companion Pass - no other airline I'm aware of offers something resembling this. So, WN's FFP definitely has its advantages but the one you mention is not one of them.