Originally Posted by
mahasamatman
Classic!
Talk about devaluation, to live in the "good old days", I got the following for a single 50,000 mile award on TWA:
- One round-trip first class ticket anywhere in the world. I flew BOS-TLV-BOS.
- One first class upgrade on any fare to anywhere in the world. I used it on another BOS-TLV-BOS.
- One week rental car.
- One week in a hotel (I can't remember which chain).
- Some other coupons that I can't recall.
Just out of curiosity, how full were the flights? I am guessing not completely full.
These programs were built on the premise that customers would be more likely to buy revenue tickets on a given airline (instead of one of the other eight competitors) and it was no big deal to give that customer a nice free seat on just about any flight because there would be plenty of otherwise unsold seats.
Now that there are fewer airlines and every seat might actually be sold at a cash profit, allowing mileage redemptions have a true negative cash consequence to the airline, and there is no reason not to devalue, particularly if your few true competitors are doing a similar devaluation.
This is the golden age of being an airline shareholder, and is (of will soon be) the worst time to be a customer, particularly a customer who tries to take most of his or her trips using miles.