Ask Randy

— -- These are tumultuous times for frequent fliers, as struggling airlines continue to add new fees and restrictions to their loyalty programs. So we've invited frequent-flier expert Randy Petersen to take your queries and offer advice on how to make the most of your miles. Here are some recent queries; join him in his ongoing forum to post one of your own or help answer a question from a fellow reader.

Reader TomSLC: I recently tried to book a flight to Shanghai, using Delta miles. The days I picked were listed as LOW on their calendar, which would mean 60,000 miles. But when I went to the next screen, it said the lowest award was 90,000 miles. The same happened on Northwest's website. I called Delta. They informed me that the LOW means that at least one of the segments is available at the LOW rate. This makes their calendars useless for trying to find entire trips at a given reward level. This seems to be a new problem. Any word on whether they are aware of this, working on this, care about this?

Randy Petersen:A really good question and one that I just happened to have done some research on. They are aware of this problem and are working on it. Their challenge is that the priority is the in-house conversion of the two WorldPerks and SkyMiles databases for the merger in 2009. This problem is often related to partner inventory which is unfortunately not always in real-time and thus the problem. I've seen this pop up on other programs calendars as well and for whatever reason, after several tries the glitches went away and the member was able to book. It may not have worked for you but always a suggestion. What I think you are on to here is that because a member can mix and match their award redemption between the LOW and HIGH and now the MIDDLE (!) it creates a wonderful (not!) mirage of challenges.

I wish I could tell you that their system was just having a bad day, but it is going to be a few more bad days before that particular problem is fixed, though as I have said, they are working on it and actually do care since the award system is among the core benefits that they are trying to promote for the new combined program.

Reader Mike32: Randy, I've been attempting to get straight answers from both Delta & NW regarding the way they will merge their loyalty programs. As you know, they continue to operate these independently "for the foreseeable future". I suppose some of this is because of their relationship with other carriers (like CO), but it seems to me that NW & DL could be more aggressive on putting these programs together.

I have 2.2 million lifetime miles on DL Skymiles & just over 800 thousand lifetime on NW WorldPerks. Will the new Delta simply marry these two lifetime balances together in a co-mingled account, (the way AA handled the TWA program)?

And, for 2009, should I be putting my points on DL or NW? I have lifetime Gold status on DL & I earned Gold status on NW — so the status situation is a wash. Curious as to your take on which program makes more sense to accumulate points until they merge.

Thanks in advance for offering us your view.

Randy Petersen:Good question and the answer is more related to database issues than partners because as you know, CO is a partner with both airline/programs, not just one of them. As I have noted elsewhere, I expect Delta to offer both members in early February, the ability to merge their accounts manually by identifying which accounts they have so that members will be able to move miles from one to the other ... with no fee involved! This will help them and you get a head start before the actual technology merger later in the year which can and will cause a few hick ups. This early merger will help members with duo balances with any award redemption they might anticipate during the year.

As to which program is best — well, Delta and Northwest helped that by announcing the reciprocal benefits earlier on and today, there is no advice that would be better in choosing one over the other since the elite levels are determined to be equal in the eyes of automation. I'd say since you "earned" Gold with NWA and only have lifetime Gold with Delta (this could mean access because of their Million-Miler program) I might just stay with Northwest since in earning that Gold, it tells me you likely are flying them more. While accounts will merge eventually, I think some of the better promos and elite bonuses are coming from Northwest so they still get my vote right now.

And look for some definitive info from me in early Feb. on the merger as I'm the only one predicting this early merger.

Reader DLTRAVELER: Hi Randy, About 4 years ago, the conventional wisdom seemed to be that Alaska Airlines was *the* frequent flier program to join even if you never flew Alaska Airlines. The reason was that Alaska partnered with every US legacy domestic airline, & one could use AK miles to book a partner award. But, I've heard nothing about it in the last few years. I checked AK's website, & they still partner with most of the legacy carriers. Going forward, do you still recommend signing up with them? I know I wouldn't be able to combine miles from the legacy programs, but should I add AK to my portfolio of travel rewards programs? Do they offer international travel awards on legacy carriers?

Randy Petersen:Good question and actually that conventional wisdom (well, truthfully it is not so conventional since most travelers I've given the advice to over the years continue to think you actually have to have all your travel on the airline program you belong to.) is still alive and doing well. Over the four years, Alaska Mileage Plan is NOT the same program it was then, they have made some upward changes in award charts and made a few smaller tactical errors in their program, owning likely to the pressures of the most recent oil crisis for airlines, but all in all they have managed to retain the backbone for the same reasons that have been outlined previously — they retain excellent partner opportunities in the largest non-alliance domestic program in North american, they have one of the better credit card benefit sets going and to your question, yes, they do offer international travel on legacy carriers. Their recent renewal and expansion of partnership with Delta bear that out.

And, of course there is the little known secret of the Alaska legacy carrier chart for international travel. I'll give you some highlights:

In the Alaska Mileage Plan award chart, Europe is 50K for coach and 100K for BusinessFirst on partner CO; 50K coach and 90K for BusinessElite on partner DL and 40K and 60K for coach and 90K for business class on partner AA. What's cool is the off-peak and peak for coach travel to Europe on partner AA, just like the AA program itself.

Now, contrast that with the same awards for members of the same partner programs: 50K for coach and 100K for BusinessFirst for CO OnePass; 60K for coach and 100K for BusinessElite for DL SkyMiles and 40K and 60K for coach and 100K for business class on AA AAdvantage,

You've got to see what I see in the comparison and it is like belonging to those other programs without belonging to them and of course the best part of that — where else can you fly all three of these legacy carriers and yet still have them all combined into a single frequent flier program? you can't, especially with CO moving from any partnership with DL later this year.

Yes, a big win for the little guy and in case you are interested, they are still winning Freddie Awards from being honored by their members.

Again, good question and I think our fellow readers will have learned something from this question and its answer.