Originally Posted by
eponymous_coward
Were you somehow expecting that airlines and hotel programs would stop devaluing programs the same way they've been doing for over 20 years? (This is one in a LONG SERIES of AA devaluations, all the way from the 1980's.)
This isn't like having Krugerrands, currency or owning shares of Apple. You're accumulating things that historically have been devalued consistently. So why on earth aren't you burning for something?
The frequency, scope and scale of the devaluations has not been consistent over time. It's gotten worse, but more so and more frequently when US market conditions changed and we ended up with the market being well-defined by an industry where three cartel kingpins (DL, UA, AA) run the show in far more concentrated ways than ever before.
I still have a large six figure balance of AA miles even as I wasn't clueless about where this was going. I still have time to burn my AA miles, but this is increasingly reminding me of what I had to do with Hilton HHonors and later with DL.