I feel much more annoyed about the hold than the mileage redemption increase. I'm not happy about the increase, but it is true that they have devalued their own program by giving out miles so easily... I mean, as a Gold Medallion with a credit card it has not been hard for to accumulate hundreds of thousands of miles over just a few years. However, the award ticket hold was this one last great hold over of ACTUAL courtesy and good service. I don't buy the idea that its impacting availability----I don't buy it all all.

I think they don't want people to do what I just did two weeks ago, which was to put on hold a 150,000 miles r/t LAX-CDG and then a day later change it for a 100,000 mile ticket when it became available....