It’s Getting Easier to Redeem Frequent Flyer Miles: New Study
Photo Credit: American Airlines is making far more award seats available than a year ago, according to a new study. Pictured is the interior of one of American's Boeing 777-300ERs. American Airlines
Skift Take
It's becoming easier for travelers on many airlines to use frequent flyer miles. That's the good news. But many airlines are only making the cheapest award tickets available on flights where the cash fare is low. In many cases, that means airline miles aren't as valuable as before.
Several once-stingy airlines now make more reasonably-priced free seats available to loyalty program members than a few years ago, perhaps to satisfy credit card companies who spend billions of dollars annually buying points for their best customers, according to a new study.
Worldwide, American Airlines showed the biggest jump in the annual CarTrawler Reward Seat Availability Survey, offering cheap reward seats on roughly 82 percent of flights, an increase of 27.8 points, year-over year. Other major gainers include Turkish Airlines (up 15.7 points to 95 percent) and United Airlines (up 10.7 points to 75.7 precent.)
It can be challenging to compare the world's frequent flyer programs because all have their own rules, and each prices awards differently. Nonetheless, analyst Jay Sorensen of IdeaWorksCompany tries each spring to answer a simple question: “How easy is redemption for the basic and most popular reward type offered by the world’s top airlines?"
This year, as ever
