I'd like to interview a few frequent flyers by phone on Wednesday. I'm looking for people who are accruing lots of miles without flying much, and people who have had trouble finding open seats when they want to cash in their miles. Please e-mail me right away with a bit about your story and your phone number. Thank you -- M. Allison, Chicago Tribune

It sounds like you are looking to tell a particular story - the one that says it is hard to use your miles (yes, I'm prejudging). You might also want to interview people who have redeemed miles many times, to get the other side of the story. I'm sure there are many on FlyerTalk who fit that category.

The Continental forum will be a goldmine for you.

I posted a note there just in case.

Lemmie see if I got this right, you wanna talk with frequent flyers and yer lookin' fer "people who are accruing lots of miles without flying much"

Maybe you should try the credit card forums.

I sent an email in to the person, we'll see what kind of response I get back.

I agree that I'd rather read a story about people who redeem miles for great awards. I was reading a travel book the other day by Peter Greenberg and it said frequent flyer miles are just a scam and even David Phillips (Pudding Guy) is sitting on 2,000,000 miles he can't redeem for tickets. What a load of BS. I recall Pudding Guy writing about flying with his family in business class to Europe on awards.
The journalists can spin the story whichever they want.
I've spent 700,000 miles fairly easily on First Class tickets in the last 15 months. The miles this last summer were from Diner's Club and I transferred from DC to British Airways on June 1 when the double miles promo started and I had two first class tickets from US-LHR-Australia by the end of the week.

[This message has been edited by satori (edited 09-30-2003).]

You know, I wouldn't be surprised if people who accrue lots of miles without flying much have LESS trouble finding open seats than people who accrue miles mostly through flying.

That's because the airline programs that it makes sense to accrue with by not flying much are not necessarily the same ones most people who fly a lot belong to.

For example, many/most members of Diners Club can earn miles twice as fast at British Airways as at any other airline, and British Airways is not as plagued by redemption troubles (for many typical scenarios, anyway) as some other airlines. Similarly, overseas airlines including British Airways (and others) earn miles much faster at car rental places and at Priority Club hotels (Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza, etc) than any domestic airlines. So again many people who earn more from hotels and car rentals than flying and can use overseas flights may choose to earn on overseas airlines rather than the US ones, while probably most people in the US who earn mostly by flying choose to earn on US airlines.

But even when it comes to US airlines, there are some non-flying unequities: You earn a WAY BIGGER fraction of a free flight with each stay at Hampton Inn or Choice hotels with Southwest Airlines than with any other US airline (because Southwest awards a minimum of 1/32 of a free flight per partner activity, while mile-based airlines often award a teeny tiny fraction of that). Similarly, at Hertz you can earn 1/32 of a free flight per rental, but nothing ANYWHERE CLOSE with any other US airline. So it's much more practical to earn Southwest credits than miles on other US airlines at many motels and car rentals. And meanwhile, since Southwest awards are WALKUP EQUIVALENTS, it's hard to find ANY airline with less redemption hassles.

So I've earned many more Southwest credits through partner activity than through flying, and yet I've never had a problem redeeming there. And I've earned ALL my British Airways miles by partner activity, and the only problem I had redeeming is that I had to move up a class because the cheapest class was "greyed out" on the Christmastime flights I wanted. (But since I had the all-partner-earned miles to do that, I didn't think of it as a "can't redeem" issue, just a "cost of redemption" issue, equivalent in a way to "rule busters" at some other airlines.)

Satori is right; Mr. Greenberg might want to check his source(s). I've occasionally had difficulty using my miles, but I've burned over 1.4M miles in the past 12 months alone:

2 tickets to Mauritius in F
2 tickets to Singapore in C
4 tickets to Seoul in C
2 tickets to New Zealand and Australia in C
2 tickets to Milan in C
4 tickets to Honolulu in Y
4 tickets within Hawaii in Y
2 tickets to Puerto Rico in Y
Plus 36 nights in free stays at Hilton properties

2003 was a very good year...

You are my hero!

And - I just got back from a lovely two week vacation in Europe with my wife. First Class on BA, Free nights at Paris Hilton, etc. Absolutely zero problems cashing in.

Of course, we always have the ones who demand an award for tomorrow and are incensed that it's not available!

that's awesome!

I don't have that big a stash to burn through, but my .5 million stash helped get us to Japan in business with free hotel last year.

I booked business class tickets to Europe next spring with a free week at the Hilton in Rome all at standard rates.

Gotta love FF & stay programs.

Having worked for newspapers myself, I can understand where a reporter might be coming from - but in this case my extensive personal experience does not bear out the assumption that it's hard to use miles.

While I have status with AA and therefore can get a few strings pulled to release seats that might not otherwise be available, I give most of my miles to family and friends who have no FF elite status. They call, book the award and tell the airline that they'll use my miles (or I may have to complete the process for them after they've reserved the seats). Thus, my status is irrelevant. With no exceptions I can recall, they've all been able to book the trips they wanted within whatever flexibility parameters they had at the time, though they may not have gotten their first choice of flights.

Bottom line: if you ask me, AA's and DL's FF programs work as advertised in this respect. (I can't speak about others.)

If you'd like to call me, send me an e-mail (the link over this post works) and we'll set it up.

M. Allison here again. As I said, I'm interviewing people on Wednesday, so if you'd like your comments to be used for my story, please e-mail your phone number to [email protected]. In this story I won't be quoting anonymous posters. Thanks.

It sounds like this reporter has already conceived a thesis -- FF ranks are swollen by people who don't fly much, consequently awards are harder to get -- and now is just looking to plug in real-people quotes that validate it. Only those that fit the preconception need apply.

I just got off the phone with the reporter, and thought I'd post a quick response here. We spent about a half hour talking. I think the story is more geared towards the perception that award travel is more difficult to obtain, when in reality it isn't. Also, there's a focus on how profitable partner programs can be for the airlines, and also how numerous they are. The story is aimed to be run on Friday, and they're sending out a photographer to take a picture of myself and my fiance.