Being lowly scum silvers we have decided to look more at the fares and real service when booking flights. Last year we did LAS to SFO to MEL via AKL and a return from AKL to LAS via LAX simply because ANZ offered a much much better Premium Economy product and a better price than UA was offering when we booked. The total airfare was somewhere around $7k for the two of us, UA got $150...and we still got a pile of UA miles. Today I booked our fall cruise air and UA wanted $4600 plus 80,000 miles for two of us to go EWR to AMS and then BCN back to EWR. I found a BA/AA trip on the same routing for $4100 total for two and no miles.. yes we have to connect but there is no way I can justify the added cost. Maybe if Oscar gets better and really does change some things I will get to use all of those miles in 2017 going to HKG.... The reality is with just 3 legacy carriers left there is little competition and little interest on the part of the airlines to provide any real service beyond getting us there at some point.