Originally Posted by
Mary2e
I don't know if they've jumped the shark. The redemption issues started with the consolidation of airlines made worse by the current economy and cutting back of flights.
While never easy, I used to have a much easier time using my miles and now I'm finding I'm paying more and more with upgrades becoming increasingly scarce.
In the past, I would mostly pay for hotels and use carefully collected and hoarded miles for the air. I've begun to think about doing it the other way around, at least until availablity gets better.
That has been my experience as well. I think what bothers me more than anything else are things like CO not having any BF seats on its best routes to many international destinations at any price (at least that was my experience when I was looking over the winter planning travel for 2011). (I fly mostly CO and Delta because they have the most service out of my home airport).
Your idea about the airline/hotel switch in terms of using points/miles might make sense for some people on some trips. Robyn