WorldPerks

WorldPerks offers regular travelers the ability to obtain free tickets, First Class upgrades on flights, discounted membership for its airport lounges (WorldClubs), or other types of rewards. Customers accumulate miles from actual flight segments they fly or through Northwest's partners, such as car rental companies, hotels, credit cards, and other vendors. WorldPerks' elite tiers are Silver Elite, Gold Elite and Platinum elite which allow for more mileage bonus, priority wait lists and standby and other benefits. Over the years, some details of the program have changed, such as introducing capacity controlled awards (only a certain number of seats are allocated for free travel), expiration of account if no activity occurs in three years, requirement of a Saturday night stay for domestic coach awards, waiving of capacity controls for awards but requiring double the amount of miles for redemption, and adding several partner airlines for mileage accumulation and award redemption.[19] The original name of the WorldPerks program was the Northwest Orient Airlines Free Flight Plan, which began in 1981.[20] The original program used paper coupons and gave credit for flight segments, much like the current Southwest Airlines program. Upon renaming the program to "WorldPerks", a mileage based system was begun. WorldPerks will be merged with Delta SkyMiles in December 2009[21].
In addition to its Northwest Airlink and SkyTeam alliance partnerships, Northwest offers frequent flyer partnerships with the following airlines:[22]
Air Tahiti Nui
Alaska Airlines
American Eagle (California Routes Only)
Cebu Pacific (temporarily suspended)
China Airlines
China Eastern Airlines
Garuda Indonesia (temporarily suspended)
Gulfstream International Airlines
Hawaiian Airlines
(Inter-Island and International Routes Only)
Horizon Air
Japan Airlines
Jet Airways
Jetstar Asia Airways (WorldPerks Asia only)
Kingfisher Airlines
Malaysia Airlines
Malév Hungarian Airlines
Midwest Airlines
Thai AirAsia (WorldPerks Asia only)
Northwest also offers frequent flyer partnerships with the following car rental agencies:[23]
Alamo Rent A Car
Avis Rent A Car
Budget Rent A Car[24]
Dollar Rent A Car
Hertz Rent A Car
National Car Rental
Thrifty Car Rental