Questions and Answers

It feels like airliner award programs regardless of their strengths and weaknesses might tilt differently one way or another depending on where you live. For instance, many places have one choice (DEN, DFW, IAH, CLT, MSP, DTW, MIA, SLC, PHL), but many places have multiple choices (SEA, LAX, ORD, NYC, WAS) or no real obvious choice like TPA, MCO, MSY, PDX, RDU, JAX, MEM, BNA, MCI, STL, PIT.

It would be a nice article or series of articles to explore which airline reward program is best for which location.

I think it’s a fair point, but by living in a fortress hub like DFW or IAH, you do sometime benefit from attractive fares. For instance, the easiest way for Delta to gain business from someone frequenting DFW is to offer a discounted fare.

The other difficult thing is there is no one-size fits all program. Some customers want to use their points for business class to Southeast Asia, some customers want to use their points to fly their family of 5 to Florida for Spring Break.