If this question has been posted please point me in the right direction . . . What is the best airline for redeeming frequent flyer miles? For example, I've heard that Delta advertises 25,000 ff miles for a continental ticket but they are incredibly hard to come by. Typically you have to "spend" 50,000 miles. What are the airlines that are the easiest to actually get free tickets?

Hands down it is American Airlines with highly reliable sources.
That said there are a few thousand variables depending on where you travel and where you are based.I have been at this game for years and for today American gets 95% of my revenue for making a fair supply of saver award seats available for my mileage earned
I bank in a wide variety of programs for a rainy day and in the rare instance AA can not fill my needs for a market they don't fly or are sold out.
British Airways would be my next choice but ruled out for gouging on awards and excessive fuel surcharges and anything else they can pad including UK government taxes
I'm sure there will be those that disagree saying you can't beat Delta,Continental and Northwest for excellence in redemption
A slight nod to United but still grim still in comparison.

FYI I have redeemed many millions of miles and with one rare exception (of course Continental) have never used additional miles.Because of the ongoing pattern I dumped all my revenue business with them and burned my miles and fled the company and their aircraft forverer. Even after years of being sent complimentary One Pass gold elite status cards that were tossed in the garbage can.I would be a lifetime customer with them if they would play fair......

Really? Can you provide these statistics?

I'm not aware of much in the way of statistics to prove one airline is better than another in terms of "saver" award availability. However, I would concur that American's AAdvantage program is at the top of the pack and Continental's NonePass is at the bottom.

If you review threads across FlyerTalk on award availability, it seems clear that most people who participate in multiple programs would also put AA at the top. Individually, this is anecdotal information, but taken together I believe it is a compelling endorsement of AAdvantage.

It's all a function of where you live and where you want (or have) to go.... if you're at a major hub (like DTW) you're not going to have that much choice.

We're pretty much locked into one airline (NW) and use our miles to get upgrades on long distance flights (usually vacation trips to the West Coast) -- particularly when we're flying a peak times.

It's kinda like the new TV show "deal or no deal" -- if you upgrade and see an empty seat up front (after they close the door) you know you did the equivalent of selecting the wrong case !

Bob H

[QUOTE=psyflyer]Do a search or see past Consumer Reports and Inside Flyer Magazine issues for statistics
Randy and his team at the time did an excellent job researching the situation by shedding some light on the topic
The results were pretty similar between both publications.

There weren�t many surprises at the time except for Delta who at the time before the big B did reasonably well in the reports. I see a negative change in award seat inventory since the bankruptcy with Delta. It seems to have been echoed by a number of others.
The same thing appeared to happen with United after the bankruptcy. With Northwest I don�t know how much worse it could get. When they match Continentals track record?
If you don't find the info I mentioned I will assist in digging it up again.

What is of my opinion is that award availability has since deteriorated another few notches across the board with all carriers since those numbers were crunched. Mind you I am not saying that redemptions are down just that demand is up and inventory tighter due to the increased demand. Programs have had an increase of mile accumulation and record passenger loads with strong demand for revenue and award.I would be surprised if all the airlines are increasing the supply of available award seats significantly to accomodate that increased mileage accumulation.

That is where again AA leads or has lead in the past by growing the award seat supply historically. While the amount of available seats released by airlines for redemption may remain around the same demand is clearly up again. I think we are going to see a number of disappointed travelers hoping to head for Europe in peak season. That said there will also be some winners out there too.
For those that book early or at the right time and get those seats their airline of choice will certainly be considered a winner

True nothing can be proven Including the findings in the publications.
I would like to retract that statement and say the overwhelming evidence seems to indicate. Might that be the more appropriate verbiage?
To be more politically correct Thanks for your input Mileking ^

Another variable not talked about is the availability to the top-tier members of the programs inventory that is not available to lower tier memebers. I have found this to be the case at both Delta and American. At Delta, I could have relative ease redeeming awards when I was platinum. But as silver, it's much harder. The same when I moved my business to American. I have noticed it progressively easier as I moved up the elite level ladder. As a EXP, I could have had 2-round trip tickets this weekend LAX-LHR. I almost did it, except then I realized I had a dinner to be at last night.

AA Plats I assume are out of the loop on that perk ?
No biggie as AA comes through mighty fine with some minor flexibilty more often then not.
I don't want to fly 100 k with AA anymore it is to much work and frankly not as much fun as it was in the 90s through 2001
I did it for years on UA.The lost baggage,the expiring certs,CS problems.
Today I am happy as I travel slightly less and earn just as a many miles and points thanks to all the outstanding partnerships AA and other airlines offer today.I still maintain despite my satisfaction with AA I keep active in a variety of programs for when for whatever reason they can't produce or don't serve a particular market well.Like the stock market diversify

Southwest used to have unrestricted redemption (domestic travel only, of course) except for a few blackout dates. New awards now carry capacity controls. So far the availability seems far better than that on legacy carriers, but there are no guarantees. If Southwest flies where you want to go, I'd recommend Southwest for availability for the next 12 to 24 months. After that, we'll see.

<<Delta who at the time before the big B did reasonably well in the reports. I see a negative change in award seat inventory since the bankruptcy with Delta>>

I think this is what one would expect because there will be a rush to redeem in the period leading up to, and immediately following, a bankruptcy filing to avoid holding potentially worthless miles. In Delta's case the effect may have been more noticeable because they offer virtually nothing in the way of non-flight redemptions.

dennis

You bring up a great point in the limitations to the program.They lost Virgin,Diner Club transfers and HH mile to point transfers
I actually cut up my Amex cards and have stopped earning in the program.
Fly AA only now to Atlanta.Until I see an impovement I now see their currency worth less then Continental.At Continental at least I can transfer the miles to HH rather then stare at them as worthless numbers that can't even transport me to their main hub city

I really United MP when redeeming my miles on *A partners. Really haven't had big of a problem redeeming my miles where I wanted to go whenever I wanted to go. I redeemed more than 300K miles last year. You do, however, have to do your homework in advance and know the *A network.

What percentage of that was on United and what perecentage was on Star Alliance partners?Be curious to know.Also what Star Alliance partners tend to be excellent if at all?Thanks

I prefer redeeming my international travel on *A partners on their C and F. Last year I booked two separate RT's in C from LAX to HEL using SK, LH, and NZ.

For my friend I booked Y RT to Shanghai on United due to the fact that he might have to change the return date.

I also booked two open jaws on RG GIG-FOR and SSA-GIG and one RT GIG-SSA-GIG.

These European runs I booked on a last minute and really did not have hard time getting my seat on the flights I wanted. I wanted to check the LH�s and SK�s product and well as the NZ�s flight LHR-LAX.

Quite a few people complain that they are not able to book their awards months in advance. I don�t mind booking my trips the previous day if needed.

Sometimes it helps to do these bookings at the foreign CTO�s where agents can (or maybe shouldn�t) sell the award class and see if it comes back as confirmed (HK) or unable to confirm (UC). The phone agents are more hesitant to use this tactic.

Also I booked RTW on *A in C from United's DC Promo. My route was SNA(UA)-DENx(UA)-IADx(UAD)-EZE-GRU(LH)-GIG(RG)-SSA(RG)-LIS(TP)-BCN(SP)-FRAx(LH)-IST(LH)-DXB(SQ)-SIN(SQ)-HKG(SQ)-ICN(OZ)-SYD(OZ)-AKL(NZ)-TBU(NZ)-LAX(NZ)

Then I had two sides trips using CC (coupon connection) IST-BEY-IST on MEA Y and SIN-BKK-SIN on SQ F

I did use, however, around 10 hours of my time booking the ATW and it did help that I had all the *A route maps open on various browsers to make suggestions where to check the availability.

This year I plan burning around 450K United miles on C and F travel on *A.