True, but to me those members are a lot more damaged by those who do than they are by the change from mileage-based accumulation to fee-based accumulation when the deflationary effects of the marketplace being flooded with miles.

So I still think the authors come across like old people in a sitcom who ask a grandchild what moving picture show and ice cream parlour they are going to on their date, when in fact the young people are going to a rave.

To me, these programs have changed into an elaborate coupon system. Many of us effectively purchase miles and later attempt to effectively use those "coupons" to acquire flights and hotels at a discount. Navigating the fewer and fewer opportunities to really get a discount and trying to avoid cash penalties when plans change is a problem. The airlines and hotels get a relatively larger portion of their revenue from selling coupons, which is particularly valuable to them during economic downturns. They of course give into the temptation to make these coupons harder to use during economic upturns.

Gone are the days when the programs gave someone a truly free flight as a reward for fling a certain number of miles or segments. The change in providing more coupons to someone who pays more for a flight than to someone who paid less for that same flight is consistent with this coupon system. It should makes us less loyal to any specific airline, and make them less loyal to us, but that to me is just a part of the overall change from a frequent flier system to this coupon scheme.

As with all coupon systems, I do not think they really save anyone a dime. Most coupon users end up purchasing a lot more than they otherwise would have if they did not have coupons at all. And as Andy Rooney on 60 Minutes always pointed out, people underestimate the amount of time they spend clipping the coupons and keeping track of them. But if the use of the coupons generate satisfaction to the customer and allows him to do some things he or she otherwise would not have done, they certainly serve a great purpose. The purpose of life is not to see how much can be accumulated at death.

But the author's premise that customer's should consider ignoring the programs merely because of the honey trap element of needing to spend more to accumulate more miles from just flying is a pretty small component of evaluating whether to take a specific flight on a specific airline, in my opinion.