I just received the email below. Seems like Frontier is changing their rewards program. I have too many miles already with them (70k) without a chance to really use them except getting a choice award. I wouldn't mind the change if they at least open up more seats now on the regular level so the program is actually useful.

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Dear German Expat,

Redemption Policy Update
Award tickets redeemed on or after May 1, 2009 will be treated as Economy, and will be offered two free checked bags. Complimentary checked baggage allowance and seat assignments are available only at online check-in within 24 hours of your departure, or use of the airport kiosk check-in. EarlyReturns� CHOICE* awards will be treated as Classic.

We are proud to offer one of the lowest redemption rates out there � just 20,000 miles earns you a domestic roundtrip award ticket between the contiguous United States. And we are always looking for more ways to reward your loyalty and earn your support.

Thank you for your support of Frontier Airlines as an EarlyReturns member,
we look forward to seeing you soon.

*EarlyReturns� CHOICE is our additional award seat option available to Ascent and Summit members only.

That stinks. I had enough for two award tickets at 15,000 each. Now at 20,000 miles, I only have enough for one.

If you are flying mostly mid-range hops, say DEN-LAS, which is my primary flight, you now need 20,000 / 629 = 32 segments to get a free ticket. Over at Southwest, you only need 16 segments for a free ticket. So, Early Returns may be "one of the lowest" but it is not "THE lowest" in terms of number of miles needed for a free ticket.

Also, Southwest isn't changing the rules of the game like the legacies are.

It's been 20K miles for quite some time...

The change is that a "normal" redemption ticket will no longer be treated as a Classic fare, but reading the email, all that change entails is that you won't get the free TV and the seat assignment outside of 24hrs, but still get two free bags. That doesn't sound like that big of a change to me, especially when comparing it to WN.

Checko

I agree that it is not this big of a change but I also find it nitpicking from Frontier's side. So they still give you 2 bags but why bother taking the rest away. I care less about the TV but I try to usually get 2 award seats for my wife and son and then seat selection ahead of time is very important with a 3 year old.

I doubt they save this much money (6$ for TV, seats are free for them anyway) and then why bother offending customers.

If they take the bags away then I can at least see that they get additional revenue but TV and especially seats (free from them anyway) is nitpicking.

My guess would be that they intended this from the beginning, but that it sook some time to make the IT changes to support it.

I didn't see anyone post this already - here's an interesting interview from the WSJ with Frontier's CIO about all of the complex technical issues that they deal with, especially in light of the Bankrupcy and the recent fare structure changes:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123981031844421427.html

Actually, TV is not additional revenue for Frontier. The TV system is owned and operated by LiveTV and all the money goes to them. Any comped TV is paid by Frontier to LiveTV, thus, giving it away actually costs money.

As for the seats, I see your point. However, since people seem to enjoy making comparisons to Southwest and RR, then seat assignments really shouldn't matter, right?

Checko

My bigger beef is that there are barely any standard award seats available. I checked and even when you could buy round trip for 177$ or even 142$ from DEN to BNA they did still not have seats available for a large date range using 20k miles.
I also checked DEN to LGA for a lot of days in June and nothing came up. WN has a lot more space available. For me the F9 program is close to useless with their tight controls on capacity.
Also with United I get 100% bonus on my miles, with Frontier its only 50% (I have highest status with UA and F9). So the 20k vs 25k is in reality 13.3k vs 12.5k BIS miles so on UA I do need to fly less to get the same award type.
I like F9 for various other reasons (good pricing, nice planes, usually friendly FA's, schedule works well for me, free booze, free TV) but for sure their mileage program is now far inferior to most others with their heavy capacity controls on available seats.
I have 70+k miles on it and have no real chance to use them.
Obviously there is the 40k level for Ascent and Summit that I can use but if I can buy a ticket for 200$ for the same flight the value of my miles is quite low.

I had checked on DEN MCO in early June a couple of months ago. There was availability. I then checked a couple of weeks ago and there was no availability.

This is one of the huge advantages of Southwest and the no change fee policies. If I would have had RR awards, I could have booked it and locked myself in on WN, knowing I could cancel later if the trip didn't come together. With F9, I can't do that, so I have to either wait (and the availability disappears) or I have to risk $75 per ticket.

I use my RR awards so fast, because they are so easy to use. I've got balances with the legacies because they are not as easy to use. Then the balances get depreciated as the legacy carriers change the rules.

Give me no change fees any day.

if you have 25k frontier miles you can book a roundtrip on airtran, which may give you more options

Not really a valid comparison, IMHO. Frontier gives a 50% bonus for Summit earned by flying 25,000 miles. Fly the same on United and earn Premier, which only gives a 25% bonus. The real problem is that Frontier doesn't offer any higher elite levels. I have said for a while (in fact I mentioned it once to Sean in person) that I maintain UA Premier and F9 Summit every year just because I can, but if F9 offered a 50K elite level ("Pinnacle?") with additional benefits such as a dedicated low-mileage award pool, free snacks, companion pass, 100% RDM bonus, etc... I would drop UA whenever I could and go for F9 super-elite.

Indeed that is a pretty worthless use of miles, but I find that I get a ton of values from the Plus awards. For example, my work schedule means that I can't make plans too far in advance for Holiday travel, but I relax knowing that I can spend 40K miles and make my travel plans the week before Thanksgiving, when the tickets are going for $700+

Do they stilll have the $25 redemption fee (for non-Summits)? That, as much as the award level increase, is what caused me to burn my EarlyReturns miles last fall and stopped collecting with them (not that there were many ways to collect to begin with: their partner choices seem to indicate they're not much interested in anyone who lives outside their home market of DEN).

I did hear that one of the legacies (Delta?) that instituted an award redemption fee last year has apparently recently rescinded it.

As long as you redeem online, no.

http://www.frontierairlines.com/fron...edeem-miles.do