Best & Worst Airlines for Holiday Travel

Forbes.com and Flightaware teamed up to put together a list of the best and wort airlines for Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday. Flightaware used arrival delays, rather than departure, delays from 2010 through 2012.

I was impressed that the metric was arrival delays; rather than departure delays. Typically, departure delays are used to determine an airline's on-time level. However, the article correctly pointed out, "it is sometimes possible for airlines to make up time lost on the ground while the plane is in the sky." In additon, the Forbes learned that" late arrivals actually declined during the Thanksgiving travel season — just 12 percent of Thanksgiving flights were delayed last year, compared with 19 percent in 2010. according to the Transportation Department."

Now the Best List:

1. Hawaiian Airlines
2. Alaskan Airlines
3. Mesa Airlines
4. Airtran Airlines
5. US Airways

www.hawaiimagazine.com

As you see, 3.5 of the 5 airlines operate West of Rockies (The 1/2 is US Airways due to their AmericanWest merger). The location of where an airline operates can have drastic effect of on-time ratings.

Looking at the list of worst on-time airlines, you will notice that they operate heavily in the Midwest or out of big traffic heavy airports

And the Worst List

5. American Eagle
4. American Airlines
3. Frontier Airlines
2. Express Jet
1. JetBlue

Jetblue.com

" 'With 75 percent of our flights touching the Northeast, either New York or Boston, one delay in the morning can affect the entire line of flying for that airplane,' said Jenny Dervin, a JetBlue spokeswoman. And, the Northeast is particularly affected by the kind of winter storms that delay flights."

Should these lists change who you choose to fly over the holidays? My opinion is no. Airline delays is like stock picking. You can do all the research in the world, but there are always external factors outside your control. The only thing you can do is pack your patience. Bring a smile, your patience and some holiday cheer and you will be at your destination in no time.

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Earn Miles By Transferring from Points.com

This is again one of those "I don't know if this is the best value for your miles, please do your research, have your goal and see if this is the best way to earn miles" posts. Points.com is a website that helps track your point balances in your frequent flyer accounts.

The service is free and has helped me keep track of my account numbers for airline and hotel loyalty programs. One of the most unique features of Points.com is the ability to trade or swap points between two different loyalty programs. I will discuss both options below:

Trade Points

Points.com allows you the opportunity to trade your points in one particular loyalty program with someone else's points in another loyalty program. The trade could be 1:1 or another amount.  Here are some examples of trades that were offered to me:

To complete the trade you will have to pay a fee. As you can see, the fee gets more expensive as the amount miles being trade increases. Is this a good deal? It depends on the offer and your need at the moment.

Swap Points

The other options is to swap points from one loyalty program to another. The transfer rates depend upon the program. For instance, here is what you would need to trade to earn 1,000 United Mileage Plus miles:

None of the transfer rates are particularly attractive. If you have orphan points in a loyalty account transferring to another program might be a good idea. However, transferring points just to earn more Mileage Plus miles is a terrible idea.

Below is a list of loyalty programs participating with Points.com:

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 Have a question for us? E-mail us at chris@doitforthepoints.com or jd@doitforthepoints.com