American and Turkish Airlines show dramatic increase in reward seat availability

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DUBLIN, IRELAND – The CarTrawler Reward Seat Availability Survey answers the question, “How easy is redemption for the basic and most popular reward type offered by the world’s top airlines?” The 25 carriers in the survey remained almost the same as 2017, with China Eastern, Norwegian, and WestJet as newcomers for 2018.

Key findings from this year’s survey include:

• The currency of frequent flyer programs is rapidly changing.
• Reward pricing is being influenced by cash fares and market forces.
• Some airlines are making dramatic improvements to reward availability and value.

Earning miles or points is rapidly shifting to spend-based methods rather than distance flown. Of the 25 airlines in the 2018 survey, 11 now use ticket prices to determine mileage and points accrual. The momentum of this shift is boosted by Air France/KLM and the Lufthansa Group switching to euro-based accrual during 2018.

These changes are now affecting how airlines deliver reward travel to members. In obvious and subtle ways, the prices of reward tickets are being influenced by cash fares. That’s because the global expansion of low cost carriers has created pricing disruption. Global network airlines are realizing the old binary method of using reward tables based on distance creates unreliable reward value. Members increasingly believe low fares should correspond to lower reward prices. For example, reward prices as low as 12,000 miles roundtrip were found on select Delta routes in the US, where the previous price was 25,000 miles roundtrip.

Member expectations and satisfaction are important for airlines seeking success. Happy members buy more tickets and use their co-branded credit cards more often. Perhaps this is why 11 airlines improvd their reward availability for 2018, while seven airlines had declines. Among the most significant changes is a huge 27.8 point increase of overall reward seat availability for American’s AAdvantage program and a giant 31.4 point increase for the Turkish Miles&Smiles program for long-haul reward availability Southwest Rapid Rewards held its first place position with an outstanding 100% score; every flight queried provided reward seats below the domestic saver-style level of 12,500 points/miles.

“CarTrawler is powering the evolution of airline loyalty packages by providing partners with targeted offerings that help them to reward loyal passengers in a new way. Our new on-demand taxi solution personalises the customer experience radically by giving loyalty members the option of booking their ride directly from the airline’s app and paying for it using loyalty miles.” Michael Cunningham, Senior Vice President of distribution Strategy at CarTrawler.

The following table summarizes the overall reward availability results of the 2018 survey:

Reward Availability Survey Overall Reward Availability Ranked High to Low – Seat Availability June through October, 2018
Rank	% Total Availability	Airline	Program Name	Change from 2017 to 2018
1	100.0%	Southwest	Rapid Rewards	No change
2	96.4%	Air Canada	Aeroplan	↑6.4 points
3	95.0%	Turkish	Miles&Smiles	↑15.7 points
4	94.3%	JetBlue	TrueBlue	No change
5	91.4%	Lufthansa/SWISS/Austrian	Miles & More	↑0.7 points
6	90.7%	Qantas Group	Frequent Flyer	↑9.3 points
7	89.3%	China Eastern	Eastern Miles	New for 2018
8	84.3%	Norwegian	Norwegian Reward	New for 2018
9	82.1%	American	AAdvantage	↑27.8 points
10	80.0%	Air China	PhoenixMiles	↑5.7 points
	80.0%	China Southern	Sky Pearl Club	↓5.0 points
11	77.1%	AirAsia Group	BIG Loyalty	↑1.4 points
12	75.7%	United	MileagePlus	↑10.7 points
13	72.1%	Delta	SkyMiles	↓2.2 points
14	69.3%	Alaska Group	Mileage Plan	↓12.1 points
15	68.6%	Korean Air	Skypass	↓2.8 points
16	65.7%	Emirates	Skywards	↑1.4 points
17	62.9%	Air France/KLM	Flying Blue	No change
18	62.1%	British Airways	Executive Club	↓12.2 points
19	61.4%	Cathay Pacific	Asia Miles	↑6.4 points
20	57.1%	WestJet	WestJet Rewards	New for 2018
21	55.0%	LATAM Airlines	LATAM Pass	↑6.4 points
22	54.3%	GOL	SMILES	No change
23	47.9%	Scandinavian	EuroBonus	↓7.8 points
24	27.1%	Avianca	LifeMiles	↓11.5 points
% of Total Availability = Percent of queries that result in outbound and return reward seats. For tied results, carriers appear in alphabetical order.

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