Originally Posted by
spgaston
You may not like it (as you pointed out in another thread), but it is somewhat compelling to me. Perhaps I am a few thousand miles from an award, I have a $200 round-trip SEA-SMF netting me a couple thousand miles including bonus, I pay an extra hundred bucks and then my 2000 mile round trip is now worth 7000 miles.
I can't blame them for finding another revenue source. It's not like they are charging for something that used to be free.
Only downside I can see is potential miles inflation.
As the posting here shows there are people to whom this offer may appeal. So long as it's not mandatory AS is doing well to offer a small discount to generate extra revenue. I doubt it'll dilute miles by much as this offer is not significantly more enticing than their regular mileage purchase offer.