Correct makes sense. Mods please change to "which airline has decent award availability except when you need it."

British Airways has some of the best award availability for any airline. I've seen 8 or 9 seats available per flight on multiple days (even on routes with multiple flights per day). Yeah, there are fees, but that should be known before you get BA miles ... there are no fees for some airlines, while certain routes, the miles are a great way to get into otherwise out-of-budget business & first class seats.

+1 for Oneworld. An entire month with no availability on the route I wanted. I keep burning through my *A miles and accumulating Oneworld miles.

Disagree... AF has much better award space than BA. Anyone who disagrees with me should take a look at IAD/IAH-CDG and to a lesser extent ORD/DTW-CDG...

agreed..... delta is the worst, by far...

Agreed! As a Diamond Medallion and SUCKER ...Delta is by FAR the hardest AIRLINE to redeem awards on. I don't care about your damn awards on AF...I'm in BOS and IAD so I have AF all day. I'm not trying to go to Europe every time so everyone needs to stop justifying that their is space because AF has space. What about to the Caribbean or Latin America or SE Asia...

Anyways, Delta will RIP you off for a 30% premium like another poster mentioned!

Oh and I did find a 25k R/T domestic award. Except it wants me to leave @ 6:15am in the morning and then layover for 9hours to catch the connecting flight in the evening...RUN N TELL DAT, HOME BOI!

I've been clear with colleagues who fly, that they should choose a Star Alliance Airline carrier, United or US or LH out of BOS or IAD and don't make the same mistake that I did .

That is the reason why you see 8 or 9 seats per flight on multiple days! Read the BOLD! Fees are really only known within the Flyertalk community. My mom would be led to believe she could redeem a free ticket after flying so many miles, yes including paying taxes but she wouldn't expect there to be $500 in fuel surcharges!

Maybe but Im guessing that the reason the poster said BA is that it is not available when s/he needs it. I also agree that BA has good availability but there are times when it does not.

Those who have issues with Avios miles needs to consider to use them on AA domestic.

The original question is a bit confusing.

If I need an award on a specific flight, I've almost always gotten it on any of my airlines. By the very definition of "need", that likely means a flight departing within hours or maybe a day or two of my reservation, might entail phone or expedite fees, probably involves paying the 2x "rulebuster" award level, and would otherwise have a cash-cost of at least 1.5 or 2 cents per mile I'm using for the award.

But even within this, when I've needed a flight, I've had the best luck on AA. This has only been maybe two or three flights in my life, but they've been domestic U.S., 25k each way F awards. Maybe this is because they still have an e-500 system in place...by the time I realize I need a specific flight on UA, chances are that F is already full of upgraded elites.

For a more loose definition...flights I want, where I have flexibility across a few days and maybe even specific airports or routing but desire the standard-level awards, I have generally had better luck on AA and UA than US or DL.

To me, the "need" and "want" scenarios are very different. I'd say my greatest frustration in the "want" awards has been DL because I frequently do find award availability from the U.S. gateway city onward. It's the crappy little MCI-ATL (or whatever) flight that has no seats at the standard award level, even when that's a random off-peak Saturday, Tuesday, or Wednesday six months in advance.

US doesn't frustrate me as much because I don't tend to redeem much on US metal. Star Alliance is generally okay for me. Not great, but okay if I have flexibility.

The original question is confusing, and in any case the answer is usually "it depends" as in it depends on the type of ticket: Y/F, domestic/international, peak winter/summer, etc. We'll assume you are asking about the lowest "saver" award levels, not the mid-tier or anytime awards.

In general AA has the best availability across-the-board domestic but still can't get me to Mexico at Xmas. AS never seems to have saver awards to Mexico when I need them or on any dates remotely close. UA has been surprisingly good at domestic F seats but tougher for Y and impossible for TATL or TPAC in C (on UA metal). UA and AA probably come closest to finding seats close to my preferred date on the fare calendar. UA and WN (RR 1.0) do very well on last minute bookings, which are useful for bowl games and funerals but not for school vacations.

I don't think I really have an airline that comes "close but no cigar" Either there is availability within a couple of days of when I need it or there is nothing the entire month.

Agree

Very very confusing thread title

But just to be clear

Delta is the worse FF airline to secure a reasonable mileage award anytime!!

I strongly urge people not to join their FF program and waste their time and miles

They are almost all the worst (or the best*, if you are a glass half full person). As noted up-thread, it all depends, which is why it is so important to diversify. Just had a call from a son: he just got a much-desired interview 3 days from now in Chicago, lives by a small airport with limited flights, can't leave school until Thursday and has to be back before Monday. The cheapest ticket is almost $800 rt. Luckily, I've been trying to build up my stash of United miles; just as luckily, I have AA miles. One way, and only one way, was available on one of them for 12,500, and the other way (and only that way) was available on the other for 12,500. I'm happy, but if I didn't have miles in multiple plans, I would have had to spend more miles.

*There are, of course, exceptions to the sweeping generalization. For instance, I find it really tough to work with USAirways because they don't allow one-way awards.

I think people are taking this too seriously. Just before I typed this thread I was looking for some flights on TY and noticed that yet again they did not have availability when I wanted. Whether the need it for an emergency or for some thing months away, what airline kind of annoys you when you look at their availability and seem to regularly see none for your dates but plenty for the day/weekend before or after your date.

If it's a "months in advance" trip and they've got a workable itin within a couple days either day of the first date I searched, I consider that a win.

Agreed that one-way awards have made things so much easier from the perspective of being able to piece together awards, mix cabins, etc. There's a part of me that hopes US stays the way they are...simply because every now and then I like to build an award with stopovers or open jaws in it and one-ways have killed off some of those options. But overall, I like one-ways. It makes AA and UA miles vastly easier to use.

I don't have much vacation so Im not flexible on dates generally. Sometimes I will find the.desired outbound on the prior weekend but the desired return on another weekend. TY never seems to give me a option to use them.