Redeeming Miles for Travel
 

How easy is it to redeem miles on Frontier for award travel? I've tried some random dates and have yet to find any flights available. Is calling Frontier directly more effective?

I think it depends on the days you want to fly. You can probably forget about "redemption seats" being available on Fridays or Sundays. These are the busiest days for air travel and Frontier wants to sell those seats.

It's a big scam. I signed up for the mastercard, paid my $50 annual fee, transferred another credit card balance (incurring a fee) to get enough points - only to find out that no Sunday flights are available for my trip (a trip set for mid-July). MAYBE they should tell you if "redemption seats" are available when you're looking for flights! Instead, they bury the restriction about these seats in the fine print, and you can only find out which flights are available when you call to book. An honest program would tell you upfront - "hey, you're probably not going to be able to redeem for Friday or Sunday flights."

What really gets me steamed is when the CS rep helpfully asks if I'd like to travel home on Saturday or Monday instead? And no, calling isn't going to help - they're just using the same basic interface as you.

The CS rep I got did tell me that redemption seats are typically calculated only a few months in advance, and that seats may be added as you get closer to the date if the flight looks like it will have availability. She recommended that I try to book again in about a week. Of course, if I do have to purchase, I run the risk of fares escalating while I wait.

Redeeming with Frontier is a little more difficult then with Delta and much more difficult then SWA or NWA. However over the last few years i was able to redeem like 5 rt. A lot of times only 1 seat per plain will be available, so travel solo :)

You mean, like on Frontier's list of Redemption Tips?

The best strategy would have been to call about redemption seats _before_ transferring the miles. You can also check availability yourself by using a website such as seatcounter.com to view availability in "S" class fares.

I have indeed found this to be true, though the best bet is to pounce on them the second any "S" seats become available. I spend the $10/month to subscribe to the very useful service ExpertFlier in order to be able to set alerts, such as in this case. If you want to PM me the flights you are trying to get on, I can set an alert for you.

Thanks for the tip on seatcounter. Unfortunately, it looks like this isn't simply a "Frontier hasn't scheduled that far yet" issue. There are seats available on the flight I need in subsequent days.

How good do think my chances are of Frontier adding seats for a Sunday evening flight from Denver to Wichita if I wait?

The Frontier seatmap shows that, of 74 seats, 56 are available, another 8 are available but "premium", and 10 are unavailable.

Seatcounter, however, says there are 10 classes with 9 seats each, and another 6 classes with no availability. That obviously cannot be right (unless they're parking people on the wing or in baggage.) How does seatcounter work?

Thanks for the insight. I wonder how today's filing of Chp. 11 will influence things.

I do a lot of flying; but much of it is kept on UA. As much as I love F9, they just don't hit enough of the cities I fly to. As such, I don't have status with them. I went to go book an ticket on F9, and you get to put in dates and it says 'none-available'. Even if there is only one flight a week, it would be great to see a calendar or search +1-3 days or something. I also find it frusturating that there are no 'standard' awards for non-elites.

F9 uses 'S' as their award bucket? I'll check ITA or Seatcounter.

Thanks.

I haven't had much luck with redeeming miles on Frontier. Instead, I used my Frontier miles to fly on AirTran.