Originally Posted by
RustyC
Apologies if this has been raised, but I find myself looking through sites like Faredealalert and mentally trying to calculate if a fare like, say, ATL-DEN for $116 RT on UA is a good deal.
Irrespective of FF earnings it likely is IF you want to go anyway or have a good reason, but what about incentivizing a trip that wouldn't otherwise happen? But then ya realize the the thing would earn maybe 500 "miles" under the new system rather than at least 2,400 under the old.
And so the question: Should DL, UA and soon AA still be calling them "miles?" Or is that now a misleading term left over from a system that no longer exists?
They have always been misleading. The base reward might have been to receive 1 "mile" for each mile you travelled, but each "mile" in your account NEVER entitled you to 1 mile of travel. The value of them has and remains in the redemption, not in the accrual. So as the distance that you could travel for each "mile", was never a mile, they are no more "not miles", than has been the case for a long long time.