Question about CO: it's the most universally-bashed program here on FT, unless you've reached top-tier. But...doesn't the NW/DL partnership provide a good outlet for your miles?

Seems like you have the greatest raw number of award seats to choose from (even if the CO seats are near-nonexistent). Don't DL and NW give you a bunch of alternate flights/routes to pick from?

CO is the one major US airline on which I've never even had an FF account simply because business has never taken me to Houston or Cleveland. But I do have a few NW and DL miles, and they seem similar to the other three majors that I'm most familiar with. Sometimes tough to get exactly what you want, but not that tough to get something, if you have some flexibility.

My most recent FF redemptions have been several MCI-DTW tickets for 25k each and tickets to Belize on DL over New Year's for 35k each. 3 seats, same flights. MCI-DTW is a brutally expensive route, so it's a good place to burn 25k a ticket. None of UA, US, or AA had tickets to BZE for less than 70k each.

In my purely-anecdotal experience, AA has always been the "loosest" to Hawaii, with UA being rather tight. But I've found that to be flip-flopped to Europe, getting J award tix through Chicago to Paris and London on dates I've wanted. (AA would frequently have awards with 2 stops through the East Coast, but ORD would be unavailable.)