American AAdvantage Tops All Airlines in InsideFlyer Magazine Award Availability Report

Colorado Springs, CO (PRWEB) May 1, 2009

A recent study conducted by InsideFlyer magazine suggests that, despite media reports to the contrary, frequent flyer awards have not become less available, and in some cases the number of free flights awarded by airlines have increased in recent years.

The findings were published in the April 2009 issue of InsideFlyer magazine. As part of their research, the magazine's editorial staff examined the documents the airlines are required to submit annually to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. They then selected a sample of various airline routes and attempted to book actual award flights on different carriers, comparing the published figures to the real-life results.

Among the findings:

• In 2008, 3.1 million awards were redeemed for travel on American and American Eagle flights, representing approximately 9.7 percent of total passengers flown, meaning nearly one of every 10 passengers was flying on an award ticket. In the 27-year history of frequent flyer programs, this is the highest total number of flight awards given by any major airline.
• Both Continental OnePass and United Mileage Plus gave away 100,000 more awards in 2008 than in 2007.
• When booking online, the InsideFlyer editorial staff were successfully able to find two coach saver awards on United Airlines 95 percent of the time. Northwest finished second best in the coach saver category, with an 88 percent success rate.
• American Airlines proved to be the best when booking business-class saver awards online, with a 78 percent success rate. Delta, Northwest, and United all tied for second with a 75 percent success rate.
• Booking over the telephone continues to lead to a higher overall success rate when compared to booking awards online.
• The overall success rate of the InsideFlyer editorial team was 78 percent. This compares to a 77 percent success rate when the same study was conducted in 2008, and an 86 percent success rate in 2006.

"Despite what most industry experts would have you believe, our research shows that frequent flyers have no shortage of opportunities to redeem their frequent flyer miles for free flights," said Randy Petersen, Publisher/Editor, InsideFlyer magazine. "Not only are awards available, but they are also being used. In 2008, nearly 25 million awards were redeemed, continuing an upward trend. It's likely many of these redemptions were motivated by the general weakening economy and were used by people who wanted to cut back on spending, but not on travel."

To further test the validity of the results, the InsideFlyer editorial team compared their findings, which were obtained over a period of approximately one month and targeted 2009 flights, against consolidated figures from the magazine's monthly Award Search feature. In each issue, a city pair is selected and award availability is researched. When comparing the two methods, the results closely matched.

The complete report can be accessed online at http://www.insideflyer.com/articles/article.php?key=5277.

InsideFlyer is a product of Frequent Flyer Services and InsideFlyer.com is included in the award-winning Frequent Flyer Network of sites, which also includes FlyerTalk.com, WebFlyer.com, and BoardingArea.com. Frequent Flyer Services conceives, develops and markets products and services with the frequent flyer in mind and is the largest publisher of frequent flyer information in the world. Frequent Flyer Services is a privately owned company located in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

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