Slowly but surely more and more frequent flyer programs are adding online award booking tools to their Web sites. Continental OnePass and Midwest Express Frequent Flyer are the latest to incorporate this feature. There is still room for improvement but at least the tools are finally off the drawing board. Midwest Express Frequent Flyers can book award tickets for up to five people on the same itinerary and email itinerary choices to friends and family. Online award booking of Companion and Choice awards is currently not available. OnePass members who want to book their awards online should go to http://new.continental.com.

In addition to online award booking, Midwest Express is also now allowing members to purchase miles for personal use or as gifts. Miles can be bought in increments of 1,000, up to a maximum of 15,000 miles per account per calendar year. Frequent Flyer also has a Business Miles program in the pipeline, which would allow businesses to purchase miles for use as sales incentives, employee recognition, customer promotions and for fund raisers.