Why does AS's Partner Reservations program suck so bad?
 

I must have tried at least 4 or 5 times in 2005 to redeem a partner award using Alaska Airlines miles. Every single time I want to do it, Alaska Partner Reservations tells me that they "don't have flights" even though the seats are clearly available on the airlines' own websites. Some examples I have tried: SEA-AMS on Northwest, PTY-SEA on Continental, SCL-USH on Lan Chile. Every single time Alaska tells me they don't have flights for weeks at a time.

In my opinion this severely reduces the usefulness of the Mileage Plan program if you can hardly ever use the miles for anything other than AS. Does anyone know why this is, or a way around it?

When you say theh airline's own website clearly shows seats, are you looking at seats for sale, or award seats? Awards are capacity controlled, and the key here is flexibility. I have had no trouble with partner awards this year, but had to be creative and flexible in dates and routing.

AS has the EXACT same award availability as offered to WorldPerks members for NW flights, so I'm not sure how you're clearly seeing award seats on the NW website. If the SEA-AMS nonstop is not available for a Partner award, then NW isn't offering saver space to their own members either. As a worldperks member, you would be able to redeem a rulebuster award for more miles ..the same way you would be able to redeem a PEAK award on AS as a mileage plan member.

I'm pretty sure we have the same access to award as CO members as well. Not sure about LA.

NW offers connection service to AMS, and CO, DL, and BA also offer service to AMS as well. Were none of those options available either?

How far out were you trying to book awards? Most partner awards become available at (I think) 330 days out and many popular routes are booked quickly, especially during peak travel times. I have had no problem redeeming partner awards with enough advance planning. In fact, the partner desk has been extremely helpful (and patient) in booking award tickets. If you're expecting to book awards close to your travel date, all of the capacity-controlled award seats may already be gone.

I am not so sure this is the case. I've ran into a case where both continental.com and nwa.com (without logging in) showed two award seats available on a particular flight and three different AS partner award agents told me there were no seats (on three different days).

Yes, try BA... its usually easy getting award travel on them, including AMS (via LHR). Its always been difficult getting coach seats on partners, but not so bad in business or First. Still, expect limited availability during the heavy travel periods, including summer months in Europe.

I spent hours on the phone this fall checking into this and am pretty sure this is not the case. I had a major incentive to find flights thru AS, given that it costs quite a few less AS miles to get to Europe/Asia than it does to buy that award with NW miles (80k/90k AS miles vs. 100k/120k NW miles). We went to Europe in Nov and SE Asia in Dec and wound up having to use NW miles for both (standard award not rulebuster). My tedious work suggested that the availability of NW flights to WP members is better by orders of magnitude. I tried every NW gateway to NRT for Dec05 and could find only 1 seat on 1 day thru the AS partner desk, but a fair amount of availability thru NW Worldperks on a range of days. The SEA-AMS nonstop was available several days in Nov05 thru NW but not a single day thru AS. I had actually called the AS partner desk armed with dates I had found available on the NW website (which will show you availability for a whole month) and was told that availability is not the same.

The problem with LAN is their reservation system allows their members to book 360 days out. Alaska's system will only allow Alaska members to book 330 days out. To make things worse Lan does not release seats to Alaska at 330 days. By the time I have been able to book LAN through Alaska using Alaska miles what I wanted was gone.

I can't even imagine being able to plan a vacation 330 days from now.

My experience with LAN, AA, NW and BA has been that availability is very good as long as I am fairly flexible with dates. Of course, I never book more than two months before the flight. The closer you get to your travel dates, the better availability.

CO is much worse. There never seems to be any availability, anywhere or at anytime. Might as well just take that airline off the award chart.

NWA Elites get better award availability
 

I think maybe what Missy was trying to say is that AS availability on partners is exactly the same as availability for non-elite partner frequent fliers. NW, CO (others?) give more award options to their elite members, which is why they ask you to login to your account before searching for award travel. Maybe the key to using AS miles for partner awards is checking partner availability as a non-elite frequent flier.

There is additional availability to NW elites that is not generally available.

I don't think this is the case either, during my searches I had found some availability with WP when not logged in (so my NW elite status was not helping out), but nothing thru AS. NW availability to Asia with AS miles is close to non-existent, if I could find one for tomorrow, next week, next month I would take it b/c I think 90k miles is a steal. If anyone gets even a single NW WBC ticket to Asia with AS miles I would love to hear about it!

I've had no success in finding NW availability in Asia, but been able to book Cathay a couple of times using the AS Partners desk.

So far I have to say I've been pretty satisfied with the availability on AS partners.

Partner Desk was awesome for me
 

ANC-LHR-BCN (with two different lower 48 points to connect to-from BA) in September, all in F on AS-BA metal. Granted it's 9 months from now, but it only took some excellent advice from FT & 20 minutes on the Partner Desk line & it's a done deal. Biggest obstacle was finding F on BA from the west coast. She found it on the third airport she looked at. ^ :D

AGREED. I have never found any awards on Continental, ever, despite many dates/routes. In my honest opinion Continental should be booted from the program. Consistently, they treat Alaska passengers like CRAP and serve no useful purpose. I would be most interested in dumping Continental and adding someone like Frontier. I have always wondered why Alaska does not coordinate programs with them given the fact that Horizon flys many of the western routes for Frontier.