<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by landspeed:
The thing that really rubs me the wrong way is:
"Claim your awards as fast as you earn them. More importantly, stop obsessing about claiming only the cheaper, restricted awards and then *****ing when the airlines won't give you a seat. All of the Big Six offer unrestricted awards at about twice the price of a restricted seat. Whenever you can't get an award at the restricted level, claim the higher priced award. You're better off using more miles now than watching their value shrivel while you wait for a chance to claim a restricted award."
Hmm- half the value of your miles now, because they'll be devalued sometime in the future.</font>
That's Ol' Joe ranting away again without thinking or doing one bit of analysis. For his strategy to make sense, one would have to believe that in the future awards will require MORE THAN twice as many miles as they do now. There is no evidence to suggest that will happen any time soon, if ever. Furthermore, the basic domestic coach saver ticket (now 25K miles), has NEVER been 50K miles, even if you go back to the beginning of FF programs when they were 40K with no capacity controls.
In addition, the current industry climate is the worst it's ever been, with some airlines in bankruptcy. Yet the airlines have largely held the line on award increases. Sure there have been some, but nothing even remotely approaching a 100% mileage increase. Again, for Joe's strategy to make sense, one would have to believe that even worse conditions are ahead for the airlines.
I might also add that 84% of award tickets claimed are saver awards (that figure is from Randy on another thread). So many people ARE succeeding in getting saver awards.
Sorry, but until there is some evidence that things are really changing, Joe's strategy is foolish.