In today's Wall Street Journal article "For frequent fliers, a ranking of the stingiest airlines" Delta Airlines doesn't come off very well. It ranks 23rd out of 24 airlines, ahead only of US Airways. The consulting firm IdeaWorks made 6,720 requests for standard-mileage awards at 24 airline websites. The success rate for Delta was 27.1 percent, Southwest Airlines was 99.3 percent, United 71.4 percent, Continental 71.4 percent, American 62.9 percent and AirTran 47.1 percent.
According to the article Delta said that it has made major improvements in frequent flier award availability in the last year. Delta said that it has improved the number of saver awards. How? By adding more seats available in the final 21 days before departure. And that's an important tip for frustrated frequent fliers: Keep checking availability up to 21 days before your departure as more frequent flier seats are released. There used to be little reason to check back if an award seat wasn't available. Apparently, that's changed.
Hometown airline Sun Country was not included in the survey. That's probably because Sun Country would score a 100 percent success rate. Sun Country's Ufly frequent flier program does not limit the number of award seats as most airlines do. If you have the poionts to fly and there's an open seat still available when you want to travel, you're good. Through May 31, Sun Country is allowing people with 50 points to fly ONE-WAY anywhere in the contiguous 48 states. Normally, Sun Country requires 100 points for a round trip ticket. (You don't have to travel before May 31--just book the award flight.)
