Delta Now Among Leaders in Online Award Booking

Delta last week launched its newly revised online award booking tool.

It's very much improved over the previous version, and now ranks among the industry's best.

As has become the design standard for award booking applications, Delta's new app features a calendar view of seats available for booking by mileage program participants. The calendar view displays available seats not only on the dates initially requested by the customer, but also on the days surrounding the first choice.

The calendar view is more than a convenience -- it's a virtual necessity when booking award seats due to their limited availability and the resulting need to consider alternative flights.

Delta's move comes hard on the heels of the release of a new award booking tool from American (reviewed here). So it's natural to compare them. Is either clearly superior to the other? Based on our limited testing to date, it's a toss-up.

Having battled to a tie on award booking, we'd now like to see American and Delta -- and the rest of the major carriers -- compete in another arena: Which airline honors the highest percentage of requests for capacity-controlled award seats.

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FrequentFlier Forum Topics

As always, there's plenty of activity on the FrequentFlier Forum.

Questions, answers? Post them to the Forum!

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Continental Adds Donation Option: the March of Dimes

Continental OnePass members can now donate their miles to the March of Dimes, among a host of other charities.

According to Continental's website, to date 21,993 members have made online donations totaling 170,127,283 miles.

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Frontier Adds Elite Perks, Qualification Options

Effective immediately, Frontier EarlyReturns members have more ways to qualify for Ascent or Summit status, the program's two elite tiers.

In addition to the previous 15,000-mile qualification threshold, members can now earn Ascent status by completing 25 Frontier flight segments or charging $60,000 on a Frontier MasterCard during a calendar year.

And in addition to logging 25,000 flight miles, Summit status can now be attained by completing 40 Frontier flight segments.

Elite benefits have also been expanded to include priority access to exit row seating, confirmed standby seats ($25 for base and Ascent members, free for Summit members), and no-fee reservations changes for Summit members.

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Midwest Doubles the Miles for Duluth/Superior Flights

Through May 31, Midwest Miles members will earn double miles for qualifying Midwest Airlines/Midwest Connect flights to/from Duluth/Superior. Promo code: 12007.

Registration is required.

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Up to 50K Bonus Miles with NW's Perkology Promo

Through May 31, Northwest WorldPerks members can earn up to 50,000 bonus miles for completing various qualifying transactions.

The big bonus -- 25,000 miles -- is for new WorldPerks Visa Signature, Platinum, or Business credit card accounts. The remaining bonus mile opportunities are in amounts varying between 500 and 5,000 miles for selected transactions with participating WorldPerks partners.

Registration is required.

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Bonus Priority Club Points for Insurance Quotes

Priority Club Rewards members can earn 1,000 bonus points for requesting a no-obligation homeowner or auto insurance quote from Sentry Insurance.

(Everyone requesting a quote will also be entered into a sweepstakes drawing to recive a 100,000-point prize.)

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Rent from Budget for Triple Southwest Credits

Through April 30, Rapid Rewards members will earn triple credits -- 1.5 credits per qualifying rental instead of the standard 0.5 credit per rental -- on Budget rentals of three or more days. Offer applies to rentals of compact and larger car groups.

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Deal Alert from SmarterTravel.com

1) Spirit Domestic and Caribbean Fares from $78

Spirit has a new domestic and Caribbean sale for travel in April, May, and June. Destinations include Cancun, Nassau, Las Vegas, and Myrtle Beach, and prices start at $78 roundtrip.

Travel is valid on select Tuesdays and Wednesdays from April 24 through June 20. Book tickets at least seven days in advance. Spirit has not listed a booking deadline.

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2) Florida Fares on AirTran from $49 Each Way

AirTran is offering Florida sale fares from $49 one-way. Destinations include Ft. Myers, Orlando, Miami, Pensacola, and Tampa.

Travel is valid from April 16 through May 24. Book tickets by March 23.

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Win 250K AAdvantage Miles

Through April 10, enter American Airlines' "Million Mile Giveaway" sweepstakes for a chance to win the grand prize of 250,000 AAdvantage miles, or one of the daily 25,000-mile prizes.

To enter, view the demonstration of American's new online award booking tool, then enter your AAdvantage number and contact information.

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[Visit http://frequentflier.com/sweeps.htm for more travel sweepstakes.]

Feedback from the Frontlines of Travel

"I have a question about frequent flier miles I have accumulated in two separate airlines which I should probably combine.

"I have been with Star Alliance for some twenty years and I currently have 180,000 miles with US Air and 120,000 miles with United. As I live in Phoenix, the 'new' US Air gives me more non-stops and at fairly low prices; however, I also fly to Europe and Asia and United's service on long haul is far better. I would prefer to stay with Star Alliance so as US Air looks like it will not be taking over Delta and moving to SkyTeam, I'm not sure what will be best.

"Can I, for e.g., use one set of miles to upgrade/get award seats in the other airline? Or do you have any other suggestions that might be better?" [Steve J.]

[FrequentFlier.com replies - First, the United and US Airways miles cannot be combined. Second, there's no easy answer to your question. But here's one approach...

As much as possible, consolidate your mileage-earning in United's program, attaining elite status if possible. Why? Because United has the larger route network, and the more robust mileage program. Since you live in Phoenix, US Airways' home airport, you will inevitably be flying US Airways some of the time. So keep enough miles in your US Airways account to be able to book mileage upgrades, at least on longer flights. See how that works, and make adjustments as necessary.]

"What happened to 25,000 miles to anywhere in the 48 United States on Delta Airlines? Did I misunderstand or did they change?

"Now they tell me that it will cost 50,000 miles to go to Montana and back to SC on the dates I wanted to go. Is this a way to control without using BLACKOUT DATES?

"Any insight would be welcomed." [Bruce S.]

[FrequentFlier.com replies - Notwithstanding any claims to the contrary, the airlines' abandonment of blackout dates several years ago had no effect whatsoever on the availability of award seats. The real constraints on availability are a result of the airlines' internal capacity controls and the yield-management software that is designed to limit award seats to those that would not have been sold to paying customers.]

Until next week...