Capacity cutbacks to affect FF redemption disproportionately
 

Today CO joined UA in announcement major reduction in lift. Presumably the deleted flights will be the ones with lower load factors, the same flights that were the only ones you could get saver award seats on. This is certain to diminish our ability to redeem saver awards, and it may also disrupt already booked award travel.

What is the carrier's obligation to reaccommodate award travelers when the flight you booked is dropped? Are our awards at risk even after we book them? (That is, other than from shutdown of the airline, which we have already seen with ATA and Aloha.)

Inevitable
 

FF availiblity must suffer in this climate. It would be foolish to believe otherwise.:(

I don't know each airline's policy but I have heard Bob Crandall comment on many interviews on TV shows that 3-5% of the capacity is allocated for award travel at AA. Unless they adjust that percentage downwards (which is possible) it should not affect probability of award seat by too much. It will be slightly lower because all fare classes are nested which means if the flight gets completely full before award travel is booked then an award ticket cannot be issued thereby yeild less than 3-5% resevered capacity for award travel.

Also, I think award travel once booked has all the same privileges as a regular paying passenger.

As long as the capacity cutbacks are on US airlines it doesn't bother me at all. I only redeem C/F awards on non-US airlines.

But it's not 3% to 5% on every flight. It's zero on the high-yield flights and high on the low-yield flights, the kind that are being eliminated.

I remember seeing somewhere that on average 8% of AA's seats are for redemptions.

The one thing that will definitely increase in value is the time spent reading FlyerTalk! :)

Ie, the people who will have the most increased trouble getting award flights are the ones who aren't paying attention and aren't following the airline industry news and changes. Ie, the general public.

There will continue to be value but it may be harder to find, but if anyone will find it, it will be FTers.

Also, as mentioned, it's going to be different for highly-partnered airlines than for unpartnered ones (such as many LCCs). Like mentioned by holtju2, on a legacy the cutbacks may only be on their own metal, not on, say flights by their European or Asian partners.

In fact, at at least some legacy airlines, cutbacks are only in domestic capacity, and especially if you live in a hub or focus city where international flights originate, you may see zero cutbacks on the fligthts you want to do awards on. For example, if no one cuts back LAX-NRT (any furher than it got cut back by AA a year or two ago already), how do cutbacks on shorthops in the heartland affect LAX-NRT award availability for people living near LAX? In fact, they may make award redemption easier if you're not competing with as many connecting people, because they have a harder time connecting.

As prices go up...demand is sure to drop on flights to/from the US. I think it wouldn't be realistic to think that non-US airlines are somehow exempt from the effects that increasing prices will have on demand. They too will cut capacity to match the seats that they can sell.

Given that unused miles don't do much for the guys in accounting, I'd say it's a safe bet that when times are tough, FF redemption won't be as easy as in the happier times.

Bear in mind also that redemption demand is heaviest to the same subset of places (Hawaii, Florida, Europe in summer, etc.) So you've got an imbalance there as well as the well-known huge imbalance between unredeemed miles and seats available.

You've also got a trend where cuts fall hardest on routes favored by leisure travelers and legacy carriers really cut service to places like LAS and MCO because of not enough business travelers. The business routes take the lightest cuts but aren't necessarily the ones favored for award redemptions.

Seems like everyone is trying to add capacity to China, so if you just happened to want to go there you might not come out too badly.

As usual, lack of transparency also doesn't help.

OP's original question asked what will happen if the award flight one already has booked is cancelled because of these fleet reductions.

For instance, say you have an award flight booked out of a small mid-continent airport so that you can connect to that international C/F flight on a partner airline. Then sometime later, all service to/from that airport is dropped.

In that situation, I would expect the airline to simply cancel your entire itinerary and refund your miles - little consolation if you *really* wanted to take the trip - or put the onus on you to get yourself to another departure airport. I hope I'm wrong, but...

If your flight is cancelled, but they still service the city, I would expect the airline to treat that the same as a revenue ticket: re-accomodate you on the next earlier or later flight, your choice, or if those times are unacceptable, refund your ticket with no fees.

If they eliminate your city altogether, see the previous post...

in april I booked an award flight for a trip to homecoming in october.

i choose a flight that left on thuirsday night after work.

last week i got an email saying that my outbound flight was cancelled (leaving at 6 pm) and i was shifted to a flight leaving at 3 pm.

i took the option to accept the change, as i have no idea what would happen if I didnt.

so i would expect that you would be accomodated on any flight change, but it may also mean that the number of awards seats on that particular flight has now been lowered