Frequent-Flier Miles: Harder to Redeem?

By Cindy Loose
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 14, 2006

The frequent-flier program is 25 years old this month, and passengers are redeeming miles in record numbers. American Airlines, for example, says it made about 1.5 million awards last year. Continental handed out more than 1.6 million and, like other major U.S. airlines, reported that its "reward totals are tracking higher and higher year after year."

So why does it seem harder than ever to find a frequent-flier ticket for your hard-earned miles?

Jim Rodman of Washington, a Delta frequent flier, recently tried to cash in some of his accumulated miles for seats to the West Coast. Nothing was available during a two-week period for a 25,000-mile minimum round trip domestically (the standard with most airlines for "restricted" or "saver" awards). Instead, Rodman said, he had to lay out 50,000 miles for an "unrestricted" award.

His experience is increasingly typical, say experts such as Tim Winship, editor of FrequentFlier.com, a site for mile hounds. It's not so much that fewer seats are being given away-- although that seems to be going on at some airlines, says Winship. The bigger problem: more competition for available seats.

Frequent fliers on the world's airlines are holding an estimated 15 trillion frequent-flier miles, says Winship, and more are being earned by the second. "You can get frequent-flier miles for just about anything except sneezing," he says. Many savvy travelers have affinity credit cards that earn them miles for every purchase. Some lending companies throw in miles with a new mortgage. You can even get them by redeeming cereal box tops.

Moreover, more people are rushing to cash in their miles these days -- some because they worry the airline could go out of business, others because of high fares.

If airlines were expanding, the increased competition for seats wouldn't be a big problem. But consolidation is the trend, says analyst Henry Harteveldt of Forrester Research. There will be 4 percent fewer domestic flights this summer than last and 4.6 percent fewer seats, according to projections by eSkyGuide, an online flight direct-ory. For international flights from the States, the projection is only 1 percent more than last year, despite an apparent increased appetite.

Still, loads of miles are being redeemed. But those numbers don't reveal what consumers really want to know: What are the odds of cashing in my miles for a place I want to go, when I want to go there?

Internal surveys show that American Airlines passengers were able to get a free ticket to the destination they were looking for 80 to 90 percent of the time, and on the date they preferred about 65 to 70 percent of the time, says Kurt Stache, president of AAdvantage Marketing Programs. Judging from anecdotal evidence, such as passenger complaints, Winship says he doubts that such levels of success are true industry-wide.

But getting a freebie isn't hopeless -- even during the busy summer travel season, and even when using the minimal number of miles. That's what the Travel section discovered in a recent test of several airlines' programs. We set out to redeem miles on their Web sites, requesting a ticket from Washington airports to popular destinations on arbitrarily chosen dates in July and August.

The results:

· American Airlines. We tried for a free trip from Reagan National to Grand Cayman Island in the Caribbean, and our return date was available for a "saver" price of 30,000 miles. But the date we wanted to leave, Aug. 9, wasn't available for the minimum number of miles. However, when we checked the box saying we were flexible, we could get a "saver" ticket if we agreed to leave one day later.

· Delta Air Lines. The first four sample destinations we searched for popped up for the exact dates we selected: from BWI to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver and Atlanta, for a trip in early July. Our fifth choice, Cancun, was available only for double the minimum miles, and if we wanted to try for a different date, we had to start the search again. We struck out only on our sixth choice: a particular date for St. Thomas. The date we chose wasn't available even for extra miles, and we tried alternate dates a number of times before giving up.

· JetBlue. This discount carrier did very well in our tests and has an unusual feature: You have the option of using half the required points to book award travel just one way, should both ways not be available on your optimal date.

We tried three destinations for trips in July. Dulles to Las Vegas didn't pan out on our desired dates, but we got a thumbs-up when we clicked either "previous day" or "next day." We got Fort Lauderdale, Fla., immediately. When we tried for Long Beach, Calif., there were no award tickets for our desired dates, but by changing the date by one day, bingo.

· Northwest. The airline couldn't get us from Dulles to Amsterdam on partner KLM for the minimal 50,000 miles on the days we requested for departing and returning, but was willing to give us a seat for 100,000 miles. We also checked three days before and three days after our first choices, but even with that flexibility, we couldn't find a free seat for less than 100,000 miles.

So we tried Tokyo. Again, we couldn't find what the airline calls a "perk saver" ticket for the minimum 60,000 miles round trip on the dates we first chose. However, a "perk saver" seat was available on the way there for the date we chose, if we could spend extra miles for a "perk plus" seat on the way back. That means a round trip could be had on our first-choice dates for 90,000 miles.

Northwest did come through domestically: We found our first-choice dates from Dulles to Portland, Ore., for a minimal price of 25,000 miles. Alternately, for 45,000 miles, Northwest would send us first-class on its partner, Delta.

· Southwest Airlines. The standout. Southwest immediately came through with trips to all three of our test destinations: Denver, Las Vegas and Fort Myers, Fla., from BWI. We not only got seats for the exact dates we requested, but also could choose from a broad selection of departure times.

· US Airways. The airline immediately came up with tickets from Reagan National to Orlando for 25,000 miles each on the exact dates we first requested. London, though, was a different matter: We found no availability for the entire month of July, unless we were willing to pay double the miles.

· United Airlines. The Web site turned up no flights from Dulles to Seattle for the airline's "saver" mileage requirement of 25,000 miles round trip. The site checked automatically for availability two days before and two days after our desired departure date, to no avail. United did have free tickets for the exact date we checked -- if we were willing to part with 40,000 miles. We had better luck checking flights from D.C. to Calgary, Alberta, finding "saver" tickets for the exact dates we chose.

Airlines with less availability for awards do tend to have better-than-usual availability to their hub cities: The more flights to a place, the better chance for empty seats that airlines can't sell and thus are happy to give away.

Just remember that you're competing with a lot of other fliers holding miles. Here's hoping that the tips at right will take you where you want to go when you want to go -- or something close to that -- for the price of miles and taxes.