IMHO, I think too many people are missing the whammies here. It's not just that the miles are being devalued because the airlines keep minting them. That HAS been happening for years. But, generally speaking, there was some balance because the major carriers were growing and bringing in new international partners.

But now you have airlines minting miles with alacrity while they are reducing capacity. That truly is new and quite bad. You throw in all of the new fees and the situation has turned dire.

That, I think, was the point of the Portfolio piece: not just a currency deflation, but nothing to "buy" with the currency, either. Hence the Zimbabwe reference.

Portfolio:
http://www.portfolio.com/business-tr...-Airline-Miles