Originally Posted by
sdsearch
Do you realize how hard it is to get 3 or more premium seats as "saver" awards on the same airline? The way most seat redemption algorithms at airline FFPs work, they're not often practical for families (they typically release one or maybe two seats at a time). So if the airlines marketed more to families, without there being award availability for families added, they'd have way more complaints.
The more people there are in a family, the more practical driving vacations are the less practical flying vacations are, even if you have miles.
Yes I know awards are geared towards single flyers, mainly business flyers with expense accounts or tax write offs. If they flooded the planes with more awards I'm sure people would be more eager to spend their points/miles with an airline instead of the mall or direct cash out. I'm not familiar with loads but i'm sure if they wanted full planes especially in premium cabins, more award seats would help that.
For example, If a non-work travel family has 200k in points i'm sure they would to use that to supplement their summer vacation to Hawaii or Disneyworld. I doubt families can sustain awards year after year so there is no fear of cannibalizing paid fares.