"US News & W.R." Airline Travel Rewards: WN #2, down from #1 last year. JetBlue #1
 

Looks like they factored in airline performance and that brought Southwest down.

Another "lets try to compares apples to oranges" using subjective judgement that may or may not matter to a particular individual or circumstance. I would think this only has value to someone starting as a fresh frequent traveler and has all the carrier options open to them. I may not agree with WN operationally at all times but their FF is the best, assuming you want to go where they go!

Except for many people it's assuming you want to go:

• where they go
• in the seats they provide
• with the in-flight features they provide

For example, if you're tall, you may prefer an FFP of an airline where you can reserve seats with extra legroom, rather than (at WN) at most request a somewhat earlier boarding number and "hope" you can get an exit row seat.

And some people want actual food (even if for purchase) on a flight, not just peanuts. Or seat-back TV. Or power outlets.

Funny that WN issued a press release touting this, "we're now one of the best". PR can & will spin ANYTHING :)

http://southwest.investorroom.com/20...s-World-Report

For me, WN is #1, becasue of the "every seat is award seat".
Having completly useless miles with other airlines, I really enjoy to get immediate satisfaction 10 minutes after getting my credit card bill.:)

Disclaimer:
Seats/features do not really affect me. All my flights are either under 2 hours or consist under 2 hours legs.

Oh, I agree for sure. But my Business to Leisure/FF flights are at least 20 to 1, 95% on WN, so when its the rare time to take that FF its nice to know I'll get seats for myself and guests without hassle. But I'd gladly pay some more for a comfortable seat if that day ever arrives!

This is a common misconception. The slogan "every seat is an award seat" can be applied to other US airlines as well - UA being one of them and AA another.

Since the old RR 1.0 rewards are on their way out, people seem to forget those. But you can't try and tell me that booking an "anytime" award seat with points is more advantageous than using a standard RR 1.0 award. Any ticket over $137 is better off redeemed using that award vs. using points.

Other carriers adopt the same philosophy - at the lower level, they limit the number of seats but you can always get a seat for twice the amount.

Using points on WN may not be double but the idea is the same, so your notion that WN should be #1 because "every seat is an award seat" is misguided.

Yeah, you may have orphan miles in other FFPs just like I have so little points in WN RR 2.0 that dividing them by 70 gives me such a low dollar figure I can't possibly buy a ticket with it.

But there is something that sets apart WN elite status recognition from other programs, i. e. Companion Pass - no other airline I'm aware of offers something resembling this. So, WN's FFP definitely has its advantages but the one you mention is not one of them.

You can't fly international on either sw or jb. Enough said.

Interesting, did the US annex another dozen or so states? :rolleyes:

Ummmmmm.........

Wow - surely that is a slight exaggeration?

Absolutely not true -- go recheck their route maps. And anyway most Americans don't travel internationally.

This was true 10 years ago but not now. Some flights are blocked even at the high mile level even though seats are still being sold. Double mile awards are endangered. Capacity controls became so tight that last-seat double mile awards began to look reasonable. So they had to be restricted too!

Not all of that is true "blockage". It's been going on for many years at AA, but only in those caess where you're trying to book a cabin that's "oversold". They're willing to sell more tickets (perhaps because a cabin above is not oversold, and they know they'll "roll" some people into there), but they're not wiling to give away more tickets as awards.

And, for example, AA is not solving this by blocking "standard" awards, it's solving it by making them sometimes cost more than double. But that's still "every seat is any award seat", if it simply takes more miles than just 2x, right?

But rhe ratios between the cheapest award on Southwest and the most expensive award on Southwest are much more than 2:1, much more than 3:1, much more then 4:1, even more than 5:1, I'm not sure where they top out (between the lowest WGA redemption on a flight and when there's only last-minute BS redemptions left). I think it'll take a long time for the miles-based programs to catch up to that ratio, and in any case, their concept of higher ratios is based only on dates (with expected high demand), not how few seats are left (which is what Southwest bases higher redemption costs on).

The main reasons that people don't look at "standard" (or "top tier") awards the same as Southwest's redemptions is analogous to how a slowly boiled frog dies of overheat while a frog thrown into boiling water jumps out. Southwest makes it seem like it's "just a bit more" to redeem as things sell out gradually, while the miles-based airlines have a clear jump from "saver" to "standard" cost. Plus the advertising (especially on credit cards) from the legacies touts only the "saver" level as being what's needed for a flight, while Southwest fairly conservatively calls 50000 points as being enough for 2 round-trip flights (it could be enough for at least 5, though it might not be enough for even 2 in all cases, especially last-minute cases).