I decided last night to play around a little looking for award reservations for next year. Last year later in the summer we found standard award availability (35,000 miles) for both HNL and SJU in early February. Ended up going to San Juan for 35,000 each

So I plug in the following - TVC (Traverse City, MI) to the following:

Key West, March - 50,000
Tampa, March - 50,000
New Orleans, March - 50,000
Honolulu, January - 70,000!!!!!

I know Florida is going to run high in March, but the 70,000 for HNL surprised me. And it seemed like last year some of the higher demand cities came in at 37,500 (instead of 25,000), but not 50,000. It appeared there was a trend here.

So, to try something basic and supposedly cheap I plug in TVC-MSP in March - 50,000 miles This is a one hour flight they operate several times a day to their major hub. 50,000 miles 9 months out?!?!?!? We don't cash miles in too often (don't accrue them fast enough to ). Is this a new trend anyone is seeing? Are ANY standard awards available these days?

seems nowadays you get four choices. slim, none, only OW and B*llbuster

I just checked TVC-Tampa in January, Thursday to Thursday. 45,000 miles - gee what a bargain

I've noticed the same pattern lately. Seems like they're trying to force us into cash & miles combo or rulebuster.

It does seem it is getting more and more difficult.

I'm certainly no expert on award travel so this is just an opinion. Based on the travel I've done over the last 12 months, logic would seem to dictate that it's not so much NW (or any airline for that matter) trying to get us to pay for tickets, it's that people ARE paying for tickets. Award seats are based on availability and I don't think I've been on a flight recently where I haven't heard "we have a very full flight today". So if I'm running ABC airlines and I think that I can sell most/all of the seats on a flight, why would I give them away? At least if I make you use double your miles, I get some benefit out of the deal.

Interesting, just for kicks I tried this out and found 25k awards for the following dates:

Jan. 05 - return Jan. 12
Jan. 12 - return Jan. 19
Jan. 19 - return Jan. 26
Jan. 26 - return Feb. 2

Are you doing your search right???

I just tried TVC and airports within 100 miles and Tpa and airports within 100 miles and came up with availability in March for 25000 miles from either Pellston or TVC to SRQ. Use the "more search options" and the "search for "standard award availabiltiy only" feature and if you can the "airports within" feature 100 mile distance.

It also sometimes helps to look by segment ie TVC to DTW and then DTW to TPA and then call them with the flights you've found. I had to do that last night to get to Medford Oregon and Las Vegas using partner airlines. Good Luck and Go Titans

Of course, having some elite status and login in always increases your options.

Do you think those flights are Very full a year in (oops) 355? days in advance. Making you use double your miles is consumer fraud. Maybe the senate should pass a bill and make them use an * like car dealers. Only one at this price

The TVC-DTW can be throwing everything off and by seperating them, that'll help isolate the problem.

No, I don't think that they are very full a year in advance. What I do think is that, just like a lot of businesses, they look at HISTORICAL data. They then do a crazy thing and PROJECT how many seats they are going to sell. How many times have you seen/heard that A.) award availability has changed (for better or worse) for a particular flight, &/or B.) fares have changed (for better or worse) for a particular flight? Whatever they came up with when they PROJECTED sales might have been incorrect and therefore the availability changes closer to the flight.

Consumer fraud? I hardly think so. They tell you that there are supersaver and rulebuster awards and both are available. Maybe not when you want to use them but I really don't think that would meet the definition of fraud.

And that's exactly what we need, more government intervention, NOT!!!

Let's put it this way: If this is one of the things it takes for NW to stay in business so that I can keep accruing miles and use them a few years down the road, then that's fine. Doesn't do me any good if they give everything away now and go out of business tomorrow.

The requirement might be for First Class since it's a domestic flight. Lately, I've seen more First availability than standard/economy awards.

A few months back, I was able to snag four (4) RT Business Class (face value in excess of $36,000!!!) tix from MSP to Shanghai (via Tokya with a 2 day stay-over) over Christmas 2005. I tried and tried to make it work on the web site, but never got there. I finally called the Worldperks Gold Elite phone number and got wonderful help from a lady there who was very creative.

A little over a year ago, I also succeeded at booking two 1st class RT tix from ORD to DXB (Dubai) via AMS on NWA and KLM, followed by 2 coach class tix from DXB to NBO (Nairobi, Kenya).

All in all, as a long term Gold Elite member (who gets upgraded to 1st out of MSP about 75% of the time) I could not be happier. Worldperks has been a great program for me and my wife.

That's a perfectly good theory... if it works out that way. NW is also losing a certain number of customers, particularly elite flyers, who are horrified at the lack of award availability and will switch to a competitor. Just a quick search of desired flights on AA (where I have no status) shows far greater availability than as a NW plat.

For your sake, I hope that you're right that this type of tactic is what NW needs to do... because they are destroying the trust of many high revenue customers. I don't know why you assume that miles you accrue now will be usable a few years down the road. What if it's even less usable than now? Then what?