Originally Posted by
TrojanHorse
Man, paper certs were sure a royal PITA, I'm not sure how I didn't lose them all but looking back, they were easier to find availability, maybe because everyone lost them
No, they were easier to find and use because back in the 90's Randy's voice and Flyertalk hadn't yet reached the majority of frequent flyers. Back in those days a great many frequent flyers didn't even bother to sign up with the programs. It's a blessing and a curse sort of because so many of us learned the ins and outs of these systems that upgrades became harder and harder to find. I recall in the 90's with United that I was upgraded on 100% of my flights. And with those old paper certs you could double upgrade from economy to first on 3 cabin flights. I did that often on the inaugural 777 route LAX-IAD in 1996.