Difficulties In Frequent Flyer Miles Programs

Filed in archive Air Travel , Travel on June 14, 2010

© schuey

Although the Department of Transportation has been working very hard to protect the rights of air travelers, one group of flyers is still getting hit this summer: the frequent flyer program member. It has become increasingly hard and even at times close to impossible to redeem miles for free trips on days most travelers frequently want to fly.

Most frequent flyer tickets have been slapped with added fees and restrictions such as a $50 to $100 charge for reservations made less than three weeks in advance. Most frequent flyer perks have also been slowly taken away. Most airlines no longer allow stopping on one leg of a round trip and the changing flight times now almost always comes with a fee.

The main problem for frequent flyers, however, is just using those reward miles. It now takes booking months, or even a year, in advance, on the most traveled routes and times to secure the seats you want. While airlines generally allocate some frequent flyer seats on each flight, they won't tell you just how many seats those are.

For those traveling from June through October 2010, award seats aboard Continental were given only 71.4% of the time, followed by United at 68.6%, American at 57.9% and Delta at a miserable 12.9%.

Attempts to book a frequent flyer reservation for a round trip from New York City to Los Angeles, a heavily traveled route, for any date in July or August also bore similar results. American Airlines could not give an award trip for July. And while there were a few outbound seats open in late August, there was only one date open for the return trip: Aug. 31.

Delta Airlines, too, gave a similar situation. No trips were available for July and only one outbound trip was open for August, without a corresponding return trip. Continental was slightly better: still no round trips July but a few in August are open and United could give one award trip in July and had a few in August.

The airlines never try to explain the situation for frequent flyer programs. All they say is that availability of seats depends primarily on the route. Heavily traveled routes will have less seats available while those less traveled will have greater availability.