Originally Posted by Human Unit 763246B
I wish airline frequent flyer programs were as easy as the coffee programs. Only Southwest is so easy. With Southwest, if they have an empty seat, it's yours for the asking. With other airlines, they can refuse to let you redeem an award for a specific flight even though they have more than one empty seat. It happens all the time. Many of us have had trouble redeeming awards of which probably most of those flights had empty seats.
The downside of this, of course, being that Southwest only services 60 destinations.
The frequent flyer programs of the larger airlines are all members of larger global alliances. For instance, the Star Alliance services over 750 airports in 132 countries and miles earned on a member airline can be redeemed for free travel on any member airline to any destination.