Rewarding frequent fliers with last seat availability

摘要

An airline may offer two procedures for redeeming frequent flier miles for tickets on a specified flight of that airline, with one procedure available to frequent flier program members that do not have transactional cards associated with the frequent flier program, and another redemption procedure available to frequent flier program members that have a transactional card associated with the frequent flier program. Cardmembers have improved award seat availability for frequent flier mile redemption, regardless of their status in the frequent flier program. Cardmembers are provided with last seat availability at a base redemption rate. Thus, cardmembers are not subject to limited award seat capacity controls and restrictions that airline frequent flier programs have in place, and cardmembers do not have to use higher redemption rates for last seat availability.