Not all airline frequent-flier programs are created equal, a survey from consultancy IdeaWorks and travel-software firm ezRez says.
In February and March, the companies made 6,160 booking queries at airlines' frequent-flier websites. They entered 10 long-haul routes and 10 cities less than 2,500 miles apart to diversify their findings.
Of the major airlines they evaluated, Southwest - recently included in BusinessWeek's list of "Customer Service Champs" - had the most frequent-flier seats available for the flights searched. The Dallas-based airline offered 99.3 percent of its seats to travelers redeeming frequent-flier miles.
Second in IdeaWorks' ranking was Air Berlin, which had 98.3 percent of its seats available for frequent-flier redemption. Air Canada came in No. 3 with a 93.6 percent score.
Seat availability plummeted after that. The next-best American carrier was Alaska Airlines, which had a score of 75 percent. Delta Air Lines and US Airways were at the bottom; their frequent-flier seat-availability scores were 12.9 and 10.7 percent, respectively.
IdeaWorks' analysis was not exhaustive, and its examination of frequent-flier seat availability is just a proxy for different programs' value. But its findings could be a useful jumping-off point for the frequent traveler.
