Although the proliferation of revenue-based programs and lively award pricing is changing the game in basic ways, the access to award seats remains one of the vital elements in determining the real life value of any airline loyalty program. It would appear that a comparison of accessibility one of the airline programs would be a natural. The ideal program is the program?
Yes and no. And such comparisons are easier imagined than accomplished.
This week, IdeaWorks published the eighth edition of its Reward Seat Availability Survey. It strives to attain legitimacy by test-booking award flights on a range of dates, on a multitude of paths, on 25 airlines. The strategy does have its limitations. For example, it assesses saver grant availability, for two travelers flying booking on the airlines’ own websites. Notwithstanding the quibbles with the methodology, the results are always worth considering.
The poll sets for itself the goal of answering one simple question: “How easy is redemption for the basic and most popular reward kind offered by the world’s leading airlines?”
For the U.S. and Canadian carriers included in the analysis, the answer to that question is as follows, showing the percent of successful award reservations and the change in percentage points over last year’s study:
- Southwest — 100 percent (no change)
- JetBlue — 94.3 percent (+1.4 pts)
- Air Canada — 90.0% (-0.7 pts)
- Alaska — 81.4% (+8.6 pts)
- Delta — 74.3 percent (+5.7 pts)
- United — 65.0 percent (-7.1 pts)
- American — 54.3 percent (-2.1 pts)
The most noteworthy of the outcomes is the spread between the worst and very best award availability, with award bookings on Southwest successful twice as often on American.
Southwest is the clear winner, since it was last year. Award chairs proved every bit as available as earnings chairs. When there’s a surprise in the findings, it’s the solid functionality for making award seats available in the rates of Delta, which in recent decades has been widely derided.
The study also computes exactly what it calls Reward Payback, a measure of awards’ worth relative to the expenditure required to earn them. Therefore if it takes 20 $250 flights to earn enough miles to redeem for an award ticket with the same price, the payback, or return on investment, could be 5%.
Here’s how the same seven airlines scored:
- Alaska — 11.4 percent (+3.6 pts versus previous year)
- Southwest — 8.7% (+1.4 pts)
- JetBlue — 7.8% (-0.1 pts)
- Delta — 5.8% (+2.0 pts)
- United — 5.0% (no change)
- American — 3.9% (+0.8 pts)
- Air Canada — 3.1 percent (-0.1 pts)
The above mentioned payback figures derive from both the lowest award price in miles and also the cheapest fare in bucks, and suppose the miles were earned without a bonuses that were elite. In the example of business travelers, who pay high fares and earned incentives for their flights, the potential payback could be substantially greater.
The research uses the payback findings to compare airline programs using other retail loyalty programs along with credit-card:
The payback is so compelling for a few of the airline programs, when the calculation presumes for flying, the miles were made. The majority of miles are made at the speed of one mile per $ 1 for many purchases, for credit-card use. And a extensive comparison of airline apps and credit-card apps would have to contemplate the hassle factor in reserving awards whereas award flights are free of capacity controls and blackout dates.
Put a different way, if customers could expect to make an 11 percent revival, hassle-free and consistently, they would overwhelmingly pick that app over, say, a credit-card rewards program that only rebated an effective 1 or 2 percent. That’s not the case, but suggesting that the revival model is just too simplistic to create significant results.
Reader Reality Check
How do the study’s award accessibility outcomes compare to your experience redeeming miles?