Which airline has best overall rating for cashing in points for a ticket?
 

From January 2003 to early June, the best overall rating for cashing in points for a ticket went to US Airways and its Dividend Miles program, with users reporting a 76 percent success rate. The next highest rating went to Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus program, 69 percent, followed by Southwest Airlines, 68 percent, America West, 65 percent, Lufthansa, 64 percent, Alaska, 64 percent and American's AAdvantage, 62 percent.

The average success rate for the more than 40 programs on which judgment was passed on award redemption was 57 percent.

Success in winning an upgrade -- a sought after prize for frequent business travelers -- finds a slightly different set of winners. U.S. Airways tops that list at 84 percent, followed by Alaska, 72 percent, America West, 71 percent, Northwest, 68 percent, United, 68 percent, Aer Lingus 67 percent and American 64 percent.

The average success rate for an upgrade was 62 percent.

http://biz.yahoo.com/rc/030612/column_travel_1.html

Subjective ratings based on my own personal experience over the past 15 years (mostly non-status as well):

Southwest: 100% - never had a problem finding a seat on any flight, regardless of lead time.

United: 90% - occasional adjustment of itinerary by 1-2 days, but rarely a problem, even when booking travel on *A or to Hawaii.

American: 90% - never a problem for domestic tickets, even when using USAir miles.

Delta: 80% - similar to American and United.

Continental: 30% - Rarely has flights available when I need them, domestic or international, unless booked many months in advance. Additional points subtracted for failure to notify me that they had cancelled return flight from London (weeks earlier)until my check-in for outbound flight.

USAirways: 10% - Never able to book domestic flights even when there are many connecting options and 1-2 week time window. Finally found success for an offseason PHL-MAD flight, and even then only after several callbacks. Worst of the worst.

IMO, Continental and USAir miles are almost worthless for free travel, particularly to Europe outside winter months.

At first i was thrown off by the ratings for Southwest, but then realized that some members rendering their experiences factored in the few blackout dates that Southwest has (they must have been when the member wanted to fly and/or the expiration of the award (which was only valid for one year).

story says:
What is the writer basing this on? This statement is not attributed to anyone... Is there evidence to support this?

Only reason I'm wondering is that redeeming my Jaguar miles for an AA ticket to Alaska was extremely easy, even when many others were cashing in their own BA miles at the same time.

I'm surprised at the results; my experience seems to parallel Boraxo's.

Southwest: 100% - always with just 12-48 hours' notice.
American: 90% - adjustment of itin by a day or two.
US Airways: 0% - I don't fly US much anymore, but have a few miles sitting around; try as I might, I haven't been able to find usable open dates for a 40K Europe award.

It have always wondered about the sample size on the upgrade/reward travel statistics, upon which this article is based. I remember in the past seeing several airlines with 100% upgrade success rates for a random sampling of months.

I would be curious how Randy and Company monitor WHO submits their upgrade/award success rate.

The airlines could conceivably submit their own shills to juice up their success rates.

While it would certainly be a more complex process, having people submit their flight info (#, date, pax name, etc.) might insure the integrity of this weblfyer tool.

Irrespective, a less than perfect tool is better than no tool at all!!

It would be nice to see a comparison of domestic vs. international comparison. People redeeming Thai and Southwest miles are probably looking at totally different things.

It's also funny to see Southwest with an 85% upgrade success rate for March of 2003. It makes me really question the validity of the user responses.

Also, there are variations in what you can get. With Northwest, they'll gladly mix and match mileage requirements, letting you get the cheap ticket on the outbound, with the higher mileage for the return. With United, you have to go for either saver or standard for the whole trip. American will make you pay if you try to redeem an award within 14 miles of travel, thus reducing the value, even if there is availability.

And badabada-bing...my 1000th post!!!

A badge of honor....or shame....or simply irrelevant!

In the 17 years I've been a member of at least one FF program (starting with AAdvantage back in 1986), I have to say that in general my experiences most closely mirror Boraxo's assessment with a few differences noted below. I have redeemed or tried to redeem awards on AA, UA, CO, US, DL, AS, and NW.

Here is my view:
AA: 95% By far the best. They always seem to have something available where I want to go and when I want to go. Almost always exact date, although times may vary.

UA: 90% but declining. Again, very similar to AA but a tad more difficult. From the looks of things, award availability seems to have declined a fair bit in the last two years, but that may be due to everyone trying to get out the door at the same time due to UA's financial troubles.

US: 70% and may be improving. I've had decent luck in redeeming US awards, although I have not tried for any international flights.

DL: 70% Limited experience, domestic only, but OK success. Usually have to vary dates by a few days.

CO: 30% Absolute worst and no improvement in sight. International and Hawaii BF is nearly impossible no matter when you call. Even domestic coach is extremely difficult unless you want to pay ExtortionPass double miles. For these reasons I value my CO miles at less than 1 cent each. With the DL/NW/CO alliance, I will delight in using my 400K CO miles on the other two carriers.

AS and NW: I have very limited experienced with these two, but both have been positive. From the times I have checked availability at their websites, I would estimate them at around 80-85%. AS is probably a bit better than NW.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by MileKing:

Here is my view:
AA: 95% By far the best. They always seem to have something available where I want to go and when I want to go. Almost always exact date, although times may vary.

UA: 90% but declining. Again, very similar to AA but a tad more difficult. From the looks of things, award availability seems to have declined a fair bit in the last two years, but that may be due to everyone trying to get out the door at the same time due to UA's financial troubles.

I agree entirely. Almost always get first choice on AA; exceedingly more difficult on UA/UAX even as 1K/UGS (though UGS will call inventory desk).

Seeing general availability would be more useful with trip information.

I've never had problems getting UA flights on my desired days. However, I'm usually shuttling people between ORD-SFO or ORD-SMF. With the large volume of nonstop or connecting flights on those routes, odds are pretty good. However, I bet it would be much different if I was trying for something such as GSP-PSP. Similarly, ORD-CDG in the winter is probably a breeze, while in the summer it is probably very difficult. And for airlines, I'm sure it would be much easier to get MSP-AMS on Northwest than on any other airline, though this doesn't imply that NW has better availability.

Another useful figure would be FF flight vs. paid flight. If a domestic flight is selling for $1800, I wouldn't expect much inventory. If its selling for $200, I'd expect availability - but probably would just purchase a ticket unless there were a large number of miles to burn.
If I need a specific flight that is selling for $2000, then a 50000 award appears to be a bargain. If I have to search a few days before and after my day, then it is not such a good deal.

What's interesting to me is that some airlines allow you to check for award travel availability on their web sites even if you don't have enough miles in your account (BA, UA, CO, NW...).

Others (AA, DL(?) ) won't let you do it.

Why?

My personal experience:

US - 90% domestic, 30% int'l. All US award travel for me is premium cabin because I no longer hold an elite status. I have found entire months booked up to Europe - even in October 2002, I could not get any award seat in Envoy to Europe with 5 months' advance notice.

AA - Near 100% domestic, 75% int'l. Sometimes have to tweak my routing for domestic, but not dates. Sometimes have to move my int'l dates by 1-2 days, but can usually make it work. I always book Y domestically, and a mix of classes int'l.

UA - 75% domestic, Near 100% int'l. I've been very lucky with UA to Europe, always booking in business class. I usually get my date on the first try, or I move my itin by one day, waitlist for my date, and eventually get it. Only domestic problem with UA has been Hawaii. They seem to be very tight with awards, even with a lot of advance notice and even outside of the busiest months. Still, with some work, I got E+ award seats to Lihue a few weeks ago.

My vote is for US Air and the international flights.Last year I booked one seat from Phila to Amsterdam in May without a problem. This year I am cashing in 180,000 for two seats from Phia to Melbourne, Australia for a November-December 2003 trip, summer in that part of the world. First class from Phila to LA and business to Melbourns. I tried for Qantas but with the new United/US Air sharing, I had no problem with dates or seats.

These two statements contradict each other in part. You can redeem CO miles on NW or AS. While CO is often stingy with their own reward seats, they are perfectly happy to get you a seat on NW or AS (or another partner) if available. They don't volunteer this information if you call, but if you ask for it, you certainly can get it.

Mileking,
your post really hits home for me. I've long felt Continental was the absolute worst for making pitifully few domestic 25K awards available to their ff base. This specific award, IMO, is the "gold standard" of ff awards, the simple 25K domestic award, and an easy benchmark to track...and for years I've felt, and wished Randy would add this as one criteria for any airline to be measured against in Freddy scoring. Simle logic is that if the most basic award an airline issue, typically the domestic 25K award, is unavailable (CO), or difficult but still possible to secure(UA), or even easy to secure (AA), this should be one major leg in Freddy scoring. AA should be appluaded for making seats available, especially considering how liberal they are in selling miles to partners. Could be a real mess if AA got stingy someday. But CO's OnePass is the ultimate sinner in the area.

Randy, any chance you could someday add this criteria to Freddy scoring ?

Literally, and not only to CO's detriment, but to Chase Manhattan's Visa detriment, I now avoid flying CO and avoid racking up charges on my Chase/CO affinity credit card because it was a nightmare to ever obtain a simple domestic 25K award with CO. Who wants to rack up OnePass miles and then be denied use of them ? Since I realize the irony that OnePass has won multiple Freddys, I have concluded this issue of domestic 25K award non-availability must be more my personal problem and not as problematic for the very-frequent flyers out there who otherwise love OnePass.

or is there a silent majority, the NON-very frequent OnePass flyer out there, who, not preferring to use miles for upgrades, and instead wishing they could get these domestic awards, chose (like me) to leave the brand entirely ? My heart jumps everytime I see a thread open up like this, specifically targeted at OnePass, the worst offender by far in my personal experience.

This would make it possible to do a real interesting story for one of the frequent flyer websites/magazines...

Instead of surveying flyers on their success rates, you could spend a few hours plugging itineraries into the airlines' websites and do some comparisons. You could do Hawaii, for instance, and compare availability that's showing on the airline websites on a given date.

I guess the big drawback would be that inventories change daily so you'd have to just pick one (or a few) dates to run your test. But I think that would make for an interesting story and some good graphics comparing award availability.

Another thing it would tell you is whether theories on successful ways of redeeming miles are really true. Is it true, for example, that your best chances of getting an award are booking 365 days out? Is it true for all airlines, or only a few of them? Would maybe let people know when is the best time to book an award on a particular airline and give folks a sense for what their success rate is likely to be.

[This message has been edited by jmartin (edited 06-17-2003).]

channa, you are correct that my post is somewhat contradictory. What I should have said was that redeeming miles for award seats on CO operated flights is the worst. Yes, I was aware that I can use the CO miles on NW or AS (and soon DL), so perhaps CO miles have more value than I accord them....just not on CO. None of this changes my view that NonePass is the stingiest program when it comes to standard level awards. Like ILUVCITIBANK, I gave up collecting CO miles on anything but CO flights a very long time ago. Another carrier's miles are bound to offer better value. And with the CO/DL/NW alliance, it's likely that miles for any future CO flights I take will go to my NW or DL account.

ILUVCITIBANK, I concur that availability of standard level awards is key. The NonePass crowd who consistently voted CO the Freddie, clearly prefer the free domestic upgrades. It is a tough call.

jmartin, with the vast number of dedicated FlyerTalkers out there, I'm sure you could gather support for starting "The Great Award Seat Availability Project" to track award seat availability day by day on select routes for particular airlines. With enough people participating, individuals may only have to make a few queries each week. This would end once and for all the debate about who makes the most/least award seats available. If you start with availability of award seats to HNL, I have no doubt that AA will trounce CO.

Dunno if I'm representative of the OnePass people or not, but . . .

I exercise my CO FF miles generally for "flexible" tickets (vacations). If there's somewhere I have to be, I generally buy a ticket. I'd like to get the most "value" out of my miles, and use 'em to fly FC or far away (or both) - I don't have huge expectations regarding exact dates or destinations. Maybe that's been "learned" after a number of years with CO http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif.

My sister wanted to use her CO miles for 2 FC NYC-OGG tickets early next year. She couldn't get availability, even being a little flexible on days and totally flexible on connections. I told her she could use my AA miles. No problems, multiple FC choices on any day she wanted. She would have preferred CO, however, because of the somewhat better product to Hawaii.

ILUVCITIBANK, I think the reasons a lot of people stay with CO are: schedules, elite program, and a generally good product. Lack of FF availablity will certainly weigh against these factors, I would think.

I agree that CO is THE worst.

Personally I would rate:
1) BA
2) UA
3) AA
4) NW
5) DL
6) US
7) CO

Probably so, I agree, but I'd be somewhat tempted to switch your numbers 4,5, so as to read DL, then NW. Yet I have such,imited personal experience lately and the 4,5,6 are seemingly very close - amost tied, leading the rear, but meaningfully above CO!

While it is nice from a customer standpoint, giving away more seats than the competition is NOT something that an airline should be proud of.

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Thank you for choosing Continental Airlines, a proud member of the SkyTeam Alliance.

100% dead wrong. I am much less likely to pay for travel and accumulate miles on an airline that does not honor its commitments. Continental's refusal to provide sufficient allocation of saver award seats will drive away passengers much faster than the petty reductions in service (i.e. AA's LRTC on 757, UA's SWU devaluation) because it affects every passenger, not just the elites.

All of the airlines have had plenty of empty seats since 9/11. Since they can't fill them with paying business passengers, they should be trying to reduce their FF liabilities by filling them with award travelers.

Agree 100%.

My CO OP account was to be a "backup", but the award availability search results deliver the same bad news every time I check, regardless of my desired route, & regardless of the date or time.

For at least the routes I've desired (a mix of routes in the domestic 48), the "Standard" category within the "Economy" & "First/BusinessFirst" columns is populated w/ the same 2 words, over & over again: "Not Available".

It is not a coincidence that my desire to earn more miles in said CO OP account, let alone purchase CO travel or direct business their way--in any way, shape, or form--is now "Not Available".

Avek00, nobody here knows exactly how many awards each airline makes available at each level. However, CO has a well-deserved reputation on FT as being among the worst at redemption. This is not a victory in any way, and comprises a failure of either marketing or revenue management.

At 75% loads, giving away more seats than the competition can indicate more sophisticated revenue management, and persuasive marketing of less-desirable destinations. This is something to be proud of.