Well, earning miles from pudding, as many years ago as it was, wasn't about boarding airplanes either.

It was well before pudding that flying airplanes on routes you paid by yourself stopped being a great way to earn free flights. The last case of that was probably back when Southwest's Rapid Rewards 1.0 (the 16 credits = 1 free flight phase), during some promotions, would let you fly 4 cheap shorthaul (say, intra-California or intra-Texas) round trip and earn a free roundtrip that could be redeemed for a cross-country routing each way.

The main way that miles from airplane flights work for some people still is if they fly a lot for business and their employer uses a consistent airline. Then the employer is paying for everything, but the person flying is getting all the miles. (Unless, these days, the employer only pays for Basic Economy no-mile-earning fares, that is .)