<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by TheRook:
I haven't found a restricted/saver award for quite a while, but of course the standard awards are easily available on the same flights. The "prices" for free travel have been raised without really changing their published structure. </font>
I think this is a combination of several factors. The first is the massive number of accumulated miles in the accounts of all the people flying prior to economic downturn/terrorism/SARS/whatever reason they chose to reduce flying. The second is the reduction in total flights (and therefore total capacity) across the board. I'd guess that the percentage of seats on a plane that are allowed to be saver awards is roughly the same is a few years ago, but now there are more people trying to get fewer available award seats.
Personally, I'm saving miles for use on a "big" trip in the next year or two, or in the event a last minute emergency comes up and I don't want to pay a last-minute full-fare ticket. I don't plan for my balance to ever make it to seven figures.
