The Bleak Future Of Partner Award Travel

While it appears Alaska Airlines will resolve its last-minute partner award blocking, that was but a symptom of a wider and ongoing problem: the death by a thousand cuts of partner award travel.

Partner Award Travel Is Harder Than Ever

I’m old enough to remember the good old days of partner award travel. Trips around the world in Lufthansa, SWISS, Turkish, ANA, and Thai First Class using Air Canada Aeroplan or United MileagePlus miles. I’m old enough to remember the days of cheap Emirates First Class awards on Alaska Airlines and the days when booking ANA First Class with Virgin Atlantic was as easy as picking up the phone and calling.

But over the last few years, we’ve seen a different trend. More seats are being held back. Fewer seats are released, even at the last minute. More and more carriers are restricting award travel to their own loyalty program members.

Here are some examples:

Have you noticed how much more difficult it is lately to secure Lufthansa Group award space? Austrian Airlines, for example, has all but disappeared when using partners like Avianca LifeMiles, Aeroplan, or MileagePlus. SWISS space is also becoming far harder, even when there are many unsold seats.
British Airways is now holding award space for its own Executive Club members, something it never did historically
United Airlines is now reserving a subset of “saver” space (X) and (I) for its own members…the days of booking last-minute domestic awards on United flights via Aeroplan is now far more difficult.
Air France and KLM have a solid loyalty program in Flying Blue, but good luck booking those flights, especially in a premium cabin, with any partner mileage currency
We see this with airlines around the world, including JAL, Cathay Pacific, Qantas, and SAS

The importance of alliances is waning and carriers are realizing there is money to be made by restricting even last-minute awards to their own members, which of course encourages loyalty to their own frequent flyer programs.

Beyond more carriers holding back partner award space, we’ve seen award chart inflation and onerous restrictions on booking like we saw when Alaska Airlines suddenly and without warning blocked all partner redemptions within 72 hours of travel.

All hope is not lost: there are still deals to be had. But the idea of redeeming on partners has become far more illusory. Therefore, adjust your expectations accordingly and keep an eye on the trends: because what we are seeing is essentially a reversion to the pre-alliance paradigm in which partner award travel was far less prevalent.

Some frequent flyers will benefit from this, but many of us will not…yet better to recognize and adjust to this change than ignore it as it continues to get worse. My recommendation remains to stock your miles in flexible currencies like Chase Ultimate Rewards and American Express Membership Rewards…at least that flexibility provides a bit more redemption wiggle room.