I actually had to start signing up for UA credit cards (you know, the ones with the 25,000 bonus miles) because I couldn't actually use my "zillions" of US miles for award travel. UA only releases award seats to its Star Alliance "partners" if the flight is wide open: they save something like the first 4 award seats for their own flyers.

It was actually pretty ridiculous: I needed a summer ticket to Jackson Hole and the cheapest fares were more than $500. I call US to see if I can fly (at least partly) on UA for reward travel. No seats available. I check UA's own award availability. Plentiful. I sign up for the UA credit card, wait 4 weeks for the mileage to post, and get my free ticket. Better than burning "real" miles!

Alas, I think UA's credit card issuer has cracked down on multiple bonuses but, last I heard, AA hasn't. If you want an airline credit card that actually earns you mileage you can use, those 2 airlines are the way to go.

You'd think that statement would be true, but it's not. On UA and AA it is true. On the other airlines, finding an "economy saver award" -- even if there are a dozen possible routings and you're extremely flexible with your times -- can often be an ordeal. That's what my own research showed, and that's what McCartney wrote today.

Scott McCartney
Wall Street Journal
Mar. 6, 2007 12:55 PM

Are some airlines more miserly than others when making discounted frequent-flier award seats available? It would appear so.
I recently checked available award seats on 24 routes for various summer and fall 2007 travel dates found that Delta Air Lines Inc. and US Airways Group Inc. often required more miles than other major carriers.
AMR Corp.'s American and UAL Corp.'s United were the most generous, with coach seats available at their lowest award levels on 14 of 24 trips checked. Continental Airlines Inc. and Northwest Airlines Corp. fell in the middle. US Airways, however, offered its lowest-priced award on only two of 24 itineraries; Delta on zero.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articl...eat06-ON.html#

What Scott failed to mention was that if you can't get a saver coach award, rather than paying double miles for the same seat, you need to attempt to book a C or F seat instead.

When my cousin had difficulty booking an AA saver seat LGA/DEN, I suggested he book a first class seat instead; rather than an anytime coach seat.

It still cost him 50k, but at least he sat upfront.
Most frequent flyers don't think to do this (except us).

dh

I was looking to book an award witth DL for an open-jaw PVD-MSY/SLC-PVD. All DL had in coach was "Sky Choice" = 50K. Then I looked into F. There was one as a "Sky Saver"! The cost = 45K!

So F cost 5K less than Y!

I have a bunch of miles to redeem on a Marriott travel package and was trying to figure out which FF program to go with -- just emptied my main one on a trip to Asia. Was leaning toward United and this seals it.

I even did my own unscientific comparisons between UA, AA and NW, pluggin in the same dates and cities for reward travel for each. United worked best in my tiny sampling, too.

But internationally you should never book any awards, at least on premium cabins, on US carriers because their foreign redemption partners� products are superior.

Trying to book complicated awards on Star partners using United MP miles is sometimes like pulling teeth and banging your head against the wall.

WOW, need to find this article.

http://www.moneyweb.co.za/mw/view/mw...7752&sn=Detail

I wish someone would do a study on partner awards for international travel. For example, I would much prefer to use my Northwest or Delta miles to fly nonstop from San Francisco to Paris (and then beyond) than to fly on the metal of either of these U.S. airlines. I am now collecting miles on U.S. Air for the first time. I would never actually fly on U.S. Air metal, but would love to know how easy it is to get a Star Alliance ticket from them to, say, Bankok or Tokyo or Hong Kong, or somewhere in Europe.

hmmm, good idea. Maybe write the author and ask them to do it--or better yet, offer yourself up as the guinea pig willing to do the flying! (using their miles of course, and maybe getting some of your own when something goes wrong and they need to get you back to home base. One could do this experiment with WSJ if only for the sake of travel and research! Could be cool if you write for IgoIgo even!)

My question is: why must we use the word, "Metal?" is it to like...be "cool" and look really savvy as a FTer?

I can tell you that I have had success in using UA miles to fly UA PLANES (that's what they are) to Europe, and have used US miles to fly on UA as well.

MM
(sorry Gary, I just had to. The term didn't seem to come out naturally from ya...)

PS: I have scanned in the actual WJS printed article on this subject as a PDF onto my personal PC's desktop...

Such a study could help paint a more complete picture of the pros/cons of a given frequent flyer program's utility, but that's a far more labor-intensive study.

Although I have seen nothing in print on this, it's a bad idea to accumulate ff miles on one domestic airline if your intention is to use these miles on another domestic airline. Inventory is tight enough and, from what I can tell and what I've heard, EVERY U.S. airline gives better inventory to its own members than it makes available to its "partners." See, for example, my above story about trying to find UA seats using US miles.

I'm not sure the same "rule" applies regarding accumulating US miles for a FOREIGN airline.

If you actually took the time to read the article he does mention this:

"On several routes checked, including New York-Los Angeles, Philadelphia-San Francisco and Providence, R.I.-Phoenix, US Airways offered 50,000-mile coach tickets and 50,000-mile first-class tickets. Between Denver and Orlando, American offered a 50,000-mile coach ticket and a first-class ticket priced 5,000 miles less at 45,000 miles. Delta also offered a first-class ticket cheaper than its best coach price for the dates checked."

I gave up trying to get saver award tickets on NW a long time ago. If you just figure in you can only get rule buster tickets and not fly on their partners, you will be very happy with Northwest.