Flying with alliance members
 

I am sure this has come up before but I couldn't find it using the thread search. I have some CO miles but no NW miles. I did a search on CO website for a domestic flight and could only fly at 50K miles (big surprise). I tried same search on NW website and it had some flights for 47.5K including a better deal (one way was in F). The CO rep said I could only use my CO miles on the flights that came up on the CO website, that the alliance just means that NW provides some seats to CO for CO customers and it is free to offer other seats just to its worldperks members. I had assumed that it was like convertible currency: I could use my CO miles to buy FF seats on any aliance member that is offering them. Was this a case of the rep not knowing what she was talking about, or was it me this time?

It's a little of both.

The CO rep is wrong - your CO miles are good for more that what comes up on the CO website, because not all Skyteam partner flights come up on CO's site. However it is possible that all NW flights with award availability for CO do come up on CO's site, though I believe they can search for others.

You're wrong in thinking it's a convertible currency (ignoring the very lossy conversions by going through contortions and outside programs). You can't turn CO miles into NW miles nor vice versa.

Also, regardless of what Skyteam or other CO partner airline you get a free ticket on from CO, all CO miles you redeem are being redeemed through Continental, according the rules of CO's OnePass program, for flights ticketed by Continental. The OnePass program doesn't necessarily have the flexibility to mix and match the way NW's program does. If you saw a 47.5K reward on nwa.com, that was probably 1/2 of a 45000 mile First Class reward at the lower "PerkSaver" rate for one way, plus 1/2 of a 50000 mile Coach reward at the higher "PerkPass" rate. 22500+25000=47500 for the flight. I don't believe that Continental's program does this - though I could be wrong. In any event, just because NW had those flights available to its own members doesn't mean that CO had any availability left to those same flights.

I once had a converse situation - my wife and I were trying to fly on NW. At the time I had about 25,000 miles on CO and around 30,000 on NW, so we were trying to get the same NW flights from two different programs. I was able to get the NW flight with my CO OnePass miles but unable to get the very same NW-operated NW-coded flight from NW.

CO will let you price F/Y or Sleasy/regular combinations on your tickets, assuming they are CO flights.

Where it gets particularly difficult is when you want to do sleazy pass on a partner airline. CO doesn't have sleazy pass access to most of their partners. I'm not sure about NW, but I've never seen it, so that may be the issue.

Basically, if you want to book on a partner it has to be at the discounted rates. Otherwise you're left with sleazy pass on CO with your CO miles.

CO and NW don't share the same non-revenue inventories. Case and point: upgrades into BizFirst and WBC. KVS tool can show "I" on NW for int'l upgrades; however, CO reps do not see any availability on their systems.

Damn. This is irritating. So, I could earn all the miles I want flying CO into my CO OnePass /ac and then when I want to redeem them for an AWARD travel on AF / KLM NW to an international holiday location I cant get it?

You may well be able to get it - it's just not guaranteed. If you have some flexibility with your dates then you should be able to get an award flight.