xliioper

I'd say the vast majority of airline credit card holders aren't churners or MSer's. They aren't looking to score J tickets to exotic locations because they simply don't generate enough miles. I've scored some pretty decent coach deals on DL the last couple weeks -- two RT tickets DTW-SXM for 22K miles each and a one-way on MIA-DTW for 7500 miles. I understand that J tickets on DL can be quite pricey, but not everyone obsesses over using miles for J redemptions.

BearX220

This is true. There's a tendency on FT to blame mileage runners (before), bloggers and MS exploiters (now) for program tightening. But theirs are rare outlier behaviors. Yes, the airlines would like to stop churning, etc. because it absolutely is program abuse and the perpetrators are competing for scarce award inventory against actual loyal customers. No, the airlines do not think churners and MSers are an existential threat - just an irritant.

The difference between the last decade and now is that a semi-frequent, mid-range flyer used to have reasonable hope of scoring aspirational awards, e.g. longhaul premium cabins on premium airlines to faraway places. But when you earn 25% or 50% of actual miles flown on DL discount economy tix and a J award to Australia or wherever on DL is 300,000 or 375,000 miles, there's nearly no point in even trying any more. (And even this is FT myopia, because as LBJ points out relatively few customers care anyway. They want to go to Hawaii or Orlando for free, and after a few years perhaps they will.)

Between 1995 and 2010 or so I took the whole fam down to Oz in business class a few times... and scored many more single or double business class tickets to Oz, Ireland, UK, etc. with relative ease. No more. The new normal for us is to find one premium economy award seat to Oz, book it, then buy another one or two on the same itin. That is not because of bloggers. It is because of structural changes in the programs, mainly intentional scarcity.

sdsearch

Mileage runnrers and MS exploiter are individual's behaviors, but bloggers are a word-spread medium. So I don't see how the "bloggers" are "rare outlier behaviors". The issue with the bloggers was that they would take something fairly few people know and indirectly lead to it mentioned not only on a blog but then picked up by the mainstream media. That often leading to instant death of some capability. It didn't matter how few bloggers did this, if the ones that did it were the ones that the mainstream press was watching.

Well, I see little evidence of airlines (as opposed to banks) actually doing anything against churning. The only case I can think of is Alaska Airlines, and that was only in the case of "extreme" churning (applying for 3 or 4 cards at a time ) and not earning Alaska miles any other way and then I think redeeming the miles for someone's else's travel on top of that. (Ie, Alaska Airlines was looking at that combination of activities as possible fraud.) Alaska Airlines has done nothing to date against people who churn their card "just" several times a year (one at a time) and participate in no other "potentially suspicious" behavior.

All the other activity against churning seems to be on the part of the banks, and doesn't discriminate between airline miles, hotel, points, or other types of points. Amex's once in a lifetime applies to any card that has any signup bonus of any kind. Chase's 5/24 applies to cashback cards, in addition to airline cards and (so far just some) hotel cards.

beachmouse

Or alternately they just aren't interested in those exotic destinations. My mother (only really has a passport to make the odd trip into Canada) loves her Delta Amex because her typical travel points have reasonable redemption prices from Delta and she really enjoys finding the $500-$600 or more round trip domestic ticket during peak time that she can redeem for 25K miles.

smurov

I think what you said here is so important. TPG is one of the best, if not the best, known points/miles bloggers out there. Not pointing all blame towards him, more just using him as an example, but when someone and their tactics/knowledge/strategies/etc. are so publicly broadcast it has a strong effect on the world of points/miles. With how much readership he has, not to mention all the interviews on TV and social media sharing, this world has been directly broadcast to the general public.

So while he's doing something great for himself (I can't be mad at him for that), it makes the lives of the rest of us more difficult. As you pointed out, it leads to the death of certain things instantly, and then helps to bury other things as well. There are so many things that are either no-brainers or common sense to the public about points/miles, and that have since been diminished or taken away, that would not have been public knowledge and may still be around now had it not been for how much attention TPG received.

It's funny, cause you want to share this hobby with others, but at the same time there is always that feeling of knowing every exploitation/tactic/etc. is going to bring a negative result sooner, so why have more people do it to make that time come faster?

Even looking at something so simple as award space, having more people sign up for credit cards for mileage bonuses means that the already scarce amount of seats gets even harder to find.

Zeeb

A 2% across the board cashback card is pretty easy to get. So I'd say that the minimum level of credibility is that people have to be able to think they can reliably get better than that. Which is why I don't think the airlines will ever go to purely 1 mile = 1 cent (or .5 cent, or 2 cents, or whatever). If you take away the ambiguity people can better compare alternatives.

sdsearch

The thing is that your comparison only works for those people who earn their airline miles purely from credit card spend.

See, cashback can only be earned from credit card spend. But at least for most domestic airlines, you can earn their miles from credit card spend, credit card signup bonuses, airline flights, hotel stays, car rentals, dining programs, shopping portals, answering surveys, etc, etc (plus any bonuses, targeted or untargeted, on any of those) So even if the credit card spend is not that great a value by itself, you may still be able to collect miles (by combining all those earning methods) way faster with real airline miles than you can collect cash with nothing but a cashback card.

Cashback cards are fine for people who are happy with saving on an occasional $350 cross-country flight. With a 2% card, that requires $17500 spend, which for many people requires using that card exclusively and still for mone that a year (if they can't put their rent/mortgage on it and maybe not their auto insurance on it either). Anyone trying to use a 2% card to save up for a truly expensive flight will get a rude awakening, though, once they realize just how much spend is necessary and how many years that's likely to take them.

scottinaz

Perhaps I am an outlier but I started using signup bonuses and credit card miles as a defensive measure to protect the value of my miles. I traveled for years for business an assumed I would be able to use those miles when I retired for my wife and I to travel overseas and stay at nice places.
What I saw was the value of my miles eroding over time with higher redemption rates and lower availability.
I just happened on Flyertalk and the concept of credit card bonus miles/points and saw that as a way to protect the value of my accumulated miles. So I don't feel bad about getting 200k extra AA miles and 60k starwood points although I realize doing this contributes to the devaluation of the miles/points I am trying to protect.