Who Has the Best Frequent Flier Deals?

Earlier this week I came across this great article in the Wall Street Journal, and I've been trying to find a free version of it online, and I've finally found success. The piece: An extensively researched article showing you how far your frequent flier mile goes on six different airlines. For example: You can fly from Philadelphia to San Francisco on June 2 for 25,000 miles on United, but the same trip costs 50,000 miles on US Airways.

Feel free to read the entire story here on AZCentral, but the real find is the large chart showing how many miles it costs to fly some two dozen routes. Scroll down and you'll see it in all its glory. Even though US Air has generally way-inflated prices-in-miles, it still shows some deals for certain routes. The only loser? Delta, which was more expensive for every route sampled. Both American and United tended to have the best overall cheap-seat availability for both domestic and international flights. (UPDATE: Sorry folks, the original online source (Moneyweb) deleted the story entirely; I found another link at AZCentral, which has the story but not the chart. If you have a Wall Street Journal online subscription you can look it up there. Sorry, again.)

Some interesting facts from the story: There's basically no regulation at all on frequent-flier programs. Airlines can offer as few frequent-flier seats as they like, or none at all, and they can pretty much charge whatever they want at any time. The story notes that in 2005, somewhere between 6 and 9 percent of all tickets sold were purchased with frequent-flier miles in some format.

It should also come as no surprise that reward seats sell out quickly when they go on the market, generally 331 days before the date of the flight. Your best bet is to try to make your travel plans on that day, but you'll have to plan awfully far ahead (here's a handy site that lets you subtract the 331 days from your target date to find that magical time to call). The story also notes that additional seats sometimes come on the market 120 days and 60 days before a flight. Set your speed dial.