I had some difficulty trying to summarize the question I want to ask for the Subject line. Oh well. The question is this: is there any difference in availability of seats for redemption when you're redeeming with a partner airline vs. with the airline with which you have the miles? For example, if I want to redeem Alaska Airlines miles for an American Airlines seat, could there be a situation where I'm told there are no more available seats on the flight I want, but if I were to call in as an AAdvantage member looking to redeem AAdvantage miles, I'd be able to get the seat I want. Or is there no distinction in this respect?

Huge difference - like night and day in almost every way!

I'm not sure I agree--the few times I've tried to do this, it seems pretty comparable (quick success long time ago using Piedmont/USAir points on BA business class, no success using NW points for CO out to Hawaii--heck, you can't use CO points for CO out to Hawaii . Punki seems to have no trouble using her AS points.

jl

I don't believe there is a difference, at least in the case of AA and AS. In fact, I would put CO in the same category as you can redeem CO miles on AS. In making arrangements to vacation in Alaska next year, I checked AA, CO, and AS for award availability on the same AS flights. I was told by all 3 airlines that the award pool was determined by AS (since the flights are operated by AS) but that all 3 airlines had the same access to the award seats.

With different airlines the situation may be different. Elsewhere on FlyerTalk, it was revealed that Hilton had more award seat availability on certain UA flights to Hawaii than UA itself! I guess the answer is it depends on the partners.

I suspect there's a difference, but I can't prove it.

In 1998, I tried to book a pair of biz class seats on AA/BA using AA miles. 10 months in advance, the trans-Atlantic seats on AA were not a problem for any of several dates I was considering. But the BA Heathrow-Istanbul flights were a problem for almost every conceivable date.

AA reps explained that Istanbul (and Athens) are the hardest BA destinations to secure seats for during the summer. But 10 months in advance?

I have no doubt that with anecdotal evidence it will be difficult to come to any certain conclusions. But, roti, your specific experience just seems too diffuse to add much weight to either side of the scale, though. I'm perfectly prepared to believe that there really are substantially more AA trans-Atlantic flights than there are BA Heathrow-Istanbul flights, and therefore more seats, and therefore the latter really could be sold out 10 months in advance. Again, just to make sure I've communicated my question clearly, if we take roti's specific experience, knowing whether a British Airways FFP member could have secured a seat on the Heathrow-Istanbul flight, when calling at the same time as roti did, would go a long ways toward answering my question (at least with respect to the AA-BA alliance).

yes/no situations happened for me on LH with LH's miles&more and UA's MileagePlus in 99 (for upgrades from business to first, I don't know for free tickets which I never use):

on LH transatlantic flights availability of upgraded first class seats using UA miles was ok (for Gisela and me flying FRA-LAX for the PIP) , when there was no more availability using LH miles. The flight-segment itself was paid in business (as part of a StarAlliance rtw-ticket) as a LH-flight-number (and LH was the actual carrier too).

Gotta love it when some actual data is counter to intuition.

These posts show that some airlines engage in more fraud that others. The example is BA to Istanbul being unavailable for many dates 10 months in advance. From my experience, KLM awards within Europe are readily available through NW (but DTW-AMS is getting harder to get in recent months). From my experience, SR, SN flights within Europe from USAirways is harder to obtain. The airlines have all the secret statistics so don't blame me if you disagree.

I'm not prepared to call the airlines' behavior fraud unless I see better proof than you claim has been presented in this thread. That's a pretty strong accusation.

Maybe. When I use UA miles for Aloha Airlines (inter-island), there are only certian times/flight I am allowed to travel on even thought there are empty seats on earlier flights. (From what I can infer (i.e. not 100% sure) from the agent, those are empty rev and award seats but cannot be claimed using UA miles i.e. class of service = x.)

Confirming Ken above, specifically with AQ/UA. The supervisor for Aloha noted to me that the inventories on each flight are entirely different, which I knew. Some/many interisland flights had no UA award seats (5k econ/10k FC) allocated period! Even though the plane was literally 100% UNsold!

My experience last week:

I called AA to book a DCA-ABQ First Class on AA for two weeks from now. Sorry, nothing available in either coach or first (that Sunday night return flight gets you every time). So, I hung up.

Then I called US Airways and tried to book the same AA seat using the exact same flights mentioned to the AA rep not 120 seconds earlier... "Sure, no problem, would you like coach or First Class???"

Don't ask me for an explanaition... I don't get it. The only possibility I can come up with is that I'm an elite with US Airways and not on AA.

I've had no problem booking award tickets in other StarAlliance Partners using my VARIG points. Except trying to use UA ! ...

Last year I tried to go with UA from MEL to AKL, as their timetable suits me better. I tried to book 6 months in advance and was quite flexible with the dates, but there was no way.
AirNZ put me in waitlist for a couple of days and confirmed the exact dates I wanted.

It was easy with AN and TG too ...

So,.. I think the point is: depending on the route and in the carrier, availability varies a LOT ! Best way out of it ,.. book in advance and always have a second option !

MMM

[This message has been edited by MMM (edited 11-23-1999).]