No, by revenue-based redemption I mean program like Southwest's or Capital One (credit cards) where the redemption "cost" in points is always proportional to the redemption "cost" in real money. Ie, a first class flight that costs 15x what the coach flight costs in money also requires 15x the points!

That's because you're talking a miles-redemption program. That's what United has. I was talking about revenue-based redemption program, like Southwest's or Capital One. On those, you would have needed millions of points (earned at a point or two per dollar) to get that the tickets on a flight that would have $20k each. (For example, Capital one earns two points, which btw they misleading call "miles", for every dollar spend, and then you redeem at 1 point per penny. So to redeem for $20,000 you need 2,000,000 points, which would have required $1,000,000 in spend. Southwest's "any airline anywhere" subprogram, which is only available to those who hold the Southwest credit card, is at least as bad, and I think it may be even worse.)

So what's the big difference between spending $1,000,000 to be able to get $20K tickets on "any airline", versus earning $20k cashback on a 2% cashback card???


My whole point in bringing up the revenue-based programs is to show how horrible they are in value, yet technically you can always get a reward seat. And those are the only programs that let you book a rewards seat on just about any airline in the world. Miles-based redemption programs like United's only let you book "anytime" awards on United's own flights.

You never hear about people getting First Class (or even Business) rewards from programs like Southwest or Capital One. It's not because it's possible, it's because it's no practical and not a good value. Everyone who trumpets Southwest and Capital One as "great way to get free flights" is talking about coach flights (and mostly domestic).