# FlyerTalk discussion - Stingiest airline for award seats



## Carolinian (Feb 28, 2010)

Here is an interesting thread on the Miles Buzz (multi-airline) forum over at FlyerTalk on which airline is stingiest on award seat availiblitily:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/mile...onsider-stingiest-allocating-award-seats.html


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## dougp26364 (Feb 28, 2010)

I think you probably only need to read the first page to realize Delta is the winner. This doesn't surpise me. I have just under 40,000 miles with them and can never find anything going my way. 

Since we only fly 4 to 6 times per year, I'm generally flying on price and service. Since we're only in the air for 4 or 5 hours on most flights, price is a major consideration. 

However, if I'm going to collect miles, I'd like to be able to spend them. If the price difference isn't that great, and it often isn't, then I'll look at the other options. This year I have two flights booked on American rather than Delta even though the price favored Delta. I've had better luck with AA's FF program in the past and, AA offeres MD-80 service out of our hometown airport rather than a 2 hour flight to ATL on a CRJ.


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## falmouth3 (Feb 28, 2010)

I was going to guess Delta.  I don't know when I've seen 25000 mile domestic tickets.  I'm using my miles this fall for 2 tickets to Salt Lake City.  They wanted 50000 miles for coach and 45000 for first class.  Since I had 95000 miles in my account, I couldn't afford two coach tickets, so we're going first class for fewer miles.  Go figure.


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## lvhmbh (Feb 28, 2010)

I tried to use miles on Delta to go from FL to California and was told they wouldn't upgrade with miles on a direct flight - how crazy is that?


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## Anne S (Feb 28, 2010)

falmouth3 said:


> I was going to guess Delta.  I don't know when I've seen 25000 mile domestic tickets.  I'm using my miles this fall for 2 tickets to Salt Lake City.  They wanted 50000 miles for coach and 45000 for first class.  Since I had 95000 miles in my account, I couldn't afford two coach tickets, so we're going first class for fewer miles.  Go figure.



Just hope that they don't kick you out of first class, as they did us when we booked first class FF tickets, JFK-SEA. Not only that, but it took three e-mail requests and one snail mail for them to finally refund the difference between the first class and coach mileage.


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## Talent312 (Feb 28, 2010)

In years gone by, I've used FF miles to fly on DL and USAir to Italy (2x), France, Hawaii (FC), Alaska, and countless other domestic destinations. I've long abandoned the idea of sticking to one airline to collect FF miles anymore. Scoring a FF-ticket does not enter into my plans.

I'll collect what's offered. If I do score a FF-ticket, well okay. Admittedly, I'm flying to DC on a USAir FF-ticket soon. I've just decided that its a better bet to expect to pay cash and place a higher priority on price considerations.


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## Carolinian (Feb 28, 2010)

Talent312 said:


> In years gone by, I've used FF miles to fly on DL and USAir to Italy (2x), France, Hawaii (FC), Alaska, and countless other domestic destinations. I've long abandoned the idea of sticking to one airline to collect FF miles anymore. Scoring a FF-ticket does not enter into my plans.
> 
> I'll collect what's offered. If I do score a FF-ticket, well okay. Admittedly, I'm flying to DC on a USAir FF-ticket soon. I've just decided that its a better bet to expect to pay cash and place a higher priority on price considerations.



I still find AA and *A and BMI work very well.  Indeed BMI is outstanding. They offer OW award tickets on their own flights and *A partners intra-Europe for either 4500 or 6K miles on direct flights.  I have 100% success with them in getting award seats on Friday Austrian Airlines flights to Vienna, which are often oversold and would cost ~$500 for a revenue ticket.  Indeed, I hope sometimes my schedule will allow me to accept the €400 I have been offered to take a voluntary bump.  That would be the ultimate, spend 6K miles on a ticket, then get €400 cash to take a bump and fly the next day.  My next Austrian flight to Vienna will be in a 6 weeks, but unfortunately, my schedule will again be too tight to take a bump.


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## cgeidl (Mar 2, 2010)

*Delta has worked well for us so far.*

We have booked two open jaws trips to Europe in the last four years and have tickets for round trip to Atlanta RT later this month.
While not easy to Europe the agents spent hours with us getting us booked to Frankfurt and back to Phoenix. Accomplished by getting one Business and one coach ticket on two flights but were seated together in business when checking in.
We have had very good luck using FF mile tickets overall but often go to Europe in September when less crowded'
In one case using FF tickets coming back from hawaii we gave up our seats for two free RT tickets and booked on the next flight in a few hours. The flight we were on got delayed and we departed only ten minutes after .When when we went to use the free tickets we volunteered to get bumped again and got two more tickets. 
We fly so infrequently now that almost all our flights are FF miles. Only one or two flights per year.


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## Carolinian (Mar 3, 2010)

Four years ago, my DL miles worked fine, too.  It is only in the last year or so, particularly since the 3-tier award chart showed up that things really got bad, and from discussions on FlyerTalk it is worse for international flights than on domestic.

Up until a couple of years ago, I would never have even thought of using ff miles in shoulder season like September.  For me low and shoulder season was the time to earn miles and high season was the time to burn miles.  For my miles on other airlines, that is still my policy and it works.  In the  last couple of years, however, DL has gotten awful about TATL (trans-Atlantic) award seats generally, and high season low miles tickets have all but dried up.  Flying to a gateway like FRA is always going to be somewhat easier than a flight that requires a connection with Europe.  Even so, prior to a couple of years ago, I always got award tickets at 50K miles on DL for high season TATL flights when I wanted to go, and they were usually deeper into Europe than merely to a gateway.

All of that has now changed.  Low award miles have zoomed to 60K miles and those are rare in high season.  I have tried repeatedly to use the NW miles that my wife and I had involuntary converted to DL SkyPiles with little luck.  She had what in NW would have fairly easily gotten almost two high season TATL tickets, but now had to settle on DL for one shoulder season ticket with a bad schedule (overnight layover midway) at 75K miles, with 20K+ orphan miles leftover.  The value in cash of what those miles were worth at NW prior to the DL takeover and what she had to settle for with DL is well into four figures.   I am sure I will end up with a similar loss on my former NW miles that I was not able to burn before the takeover.

In short, my response to your post is ''That was then, this is now!''

BTW, if you usually travel TATL in shoulder season, the smart airline to use is AA, because they only require 40K miles for a shoulder season TATL award ticket while DL's 3-tier chart starts at a minimum of 60K.  Another good one is BMI which requires 45K for a TATL ticket yearround.




cgeidl said:


> We have booked two open jaws trips to Europe in the last four years and have tickets for round trip to Atlanta RT later this month.
> While not easy to Europe the agents spent hours with us getting us booked to Frankfurt and back to Phoenix. Accomplished by getting one Business and one coach ticket on two flights but were seated together in business when checking in.
> We have had very good luck using FF mile tickets overall but often go to Europe in September when less crowded'
> In one case using FF tickets coming back from hawaii we gave up our seats for two free RT tickets and booked on the next flight in a few hours. The flight we were on got delayed and we departed only ten minutes after .When when we went to use the free tickets we volunteered to get bumped again and got two more tickets.
> We fly so infrequently now that almost all our flights are FF miles. Only one or two flights per year.


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## Judy (Mar 4, 2010)

We recently booked tickets to India on United.  We used United instead of Delta even though we had 5 times as many miles on Delta as on United.  The reason?  Delta's three tier system wanted to charge us three times as much MCO-BOM as United did and Delta claimed that they had NO award tickets available DEL - MCO, even though Delta and NWA partners fly that route. :annoyed:   
Why do we have so many miles on Delta?  Partly because we were compelled to transfer our NWA miles, but mostly because WE CAN NEVER USE THEM even though Delta is one of only two airlines to fly out of our home airport 
By the way, we got flights on United on the first phone call at their lowest advertized price.


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## Twinkstarr (Mar 6, 2010)

Judy said:


> We recently booked tickets to India on United.  We used United instead of Delta even though we had 5 times as many miles on Delta as on United.  The reason?  Delta's three tier system wanted to charge us three times as much MCO-BOM as United did and Delta claimed that they had NO award tickets available DEL - MCO, even though Delta and NWA partners fly that route. :annoyed:
> Why do we have so many miles on Delta?  Partly because we were compelled to transfer our NWA miles, but mostly because WE CAN NEVER USE THEM even though Delta is one of only two airlines to fly out of our home airport
> By the way, we got flights on United on the first phone call at their lowest advertized price.



Cool, I remember when you first posted about looking for flights to India. 

What I don't like about Delta is you have to call to use miles for upgrades, while ol' NWA you could just book them on line like a regular ticket and see all your options.


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