Audio Flying on frequent flier miles in a time of full flights (story audio) Photos Northwest ticket counters Resources Northwest WorldPerks Members' Guide InsideFlyer.com FrequentFlier.com Your Voice Join the conversation with other MPR listeners in the News Forum.

	E-mail this page			Print this page

Flying on frequent flier miles in a time of full flights
by Jeff Horwich, Minnesota Public Radio
November 10, 2003

Passengers head to Northwest flights at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. (MPR Photo/Jeff Horwich)

Over the last few months, Northwest and other major airlines have seen some positive signs, including a rebounding economy and modest profits. Airlines have scaled back the number of seats in the air and become more efficient. As a result, flights are as full as they have been in years. But what is good for the bottom-line could be frustrating one group of travelers: People trying to travel for free on frequent flier miles.

St. Paul, Minn. — About three weeks of every month, Herb Kuehl of St. Paul is somewhere else in the country. He does training for a maker of heating and air conditioning systems, and he racks up a lot of miles, mostly on Northwest. He's been booking vacations with Northwest WorldPerks miles for years, but he ran into trouble trying to book his next getaway.

"The problem was not getting from Minneapolis to Hawaii, the problem was getting from Hawaii back to Minneapolis," Kuehl says. "January was completely booked, February was completely booked. We're actually coming back the first of March -- those were the first two seats available."

Kuehl is not alone, according to the editor of FrequentFlier.com. Tim Winship says there may be structural reasons travelers are finding it tougher to book seats with their miles.

"The situation has actually gotten worse recently because the airlines have cut back on their capacity overall by something on the order of 20 percent since 9-11, and that reduction translates into a proportionate reduction in the number of award seats," Winship says. "It really, if anything, has gotten more difficult over the past two years to get an award seat, especially on those routes which are the popular ones."

The percentage of seats filled on Northwest, known as the "load factor," has been up and down a lot since 9-11. The airline had about one third of its seats empty right after the terrorist attacks. As time passed, Northwest switched to smaller aircraft on some routes and cut others that were unprofitable. Planes got more crowded with paying passengers. The war in Iraq and SARS virus caused another drop in load factor, but airline analyst Joel Denney with Piper Jaffray says for the past six months Northwest has done a "phenomenal job" of filling its seats.

"You've got flights that are, with paying passengers, already 90 percent full or 95 percent full," Denney says. "If there's only a few seats left, (Northwest has) a chance that there's going to be a passenger that wants to pay full fare between now and that flight taking off. They don't want to book that flight with somebody who's just using frequent flier miles. They want to look at maximizing their revenue."

Not everyone subscribes to the theory that booking award seats is getting tougher as planes get more full. Northwest spokeswoman Mary Stanik calls it "a myth." Randy Peterson, editor of the magazine "Inside Flyer", says award travel jumped in 2002 even as airlines trimmed extra capacity. And he does not sense a slowdown this year in people using their miles.

"Contrary to what most people believed would have happened, the changes in the industry have not affected people's ability to redeem an award. And in fact, you could argue that the industry is healthy," Peterson said.

"Right now there seems to be no more difficulty than in years past if you look at booking patterns, and right now (people are) booking for spring break."

Northwest eliminated blackout dates last year, and says standard award seats are available to every market it serves. But the airline also constantly adjusts the number of award seats on any given flight. This constant flux is why travelers might be hearing what Herb Kuehl heard, when he tried to bring his wife along on a business trip this fall: Try again later.

"And she could not get on the same flight that I was taking, but she was told, 'Call back, maybe something would open up.' She called back the next day and had no problem," Kuehl says.

If you're having trouble getting the seats you want, the experts say the usual advice applies more than ever. Be flexible: give yourself as broad a window for travel as possible. Keep calling back and checking the website, because things really can change from day to day.

And in an era of full planes, the best time to get award seats might be the time you would least expect. Try 15 to 20 days, or even just a week, before the flight, when airlines are more confident just how many seats they can set aside for non-paying customers.

News Headlines

Related Subjects