Originally Posted by
kokonutz
It's an interesting debate and I think there are fair points on both sides despite the snark.
It's true that over-consolidation of the US-based carriers coincided with massive devaluations. But it's also true that over-saturation of credit card and points and miles bloggers huckstering taking advantage of airlines by 'travel hacking' coincided with massive devaluations.
Perhaps one day someone will interview the airline execs who made these decisions from the safety of their retirements and they will come clean about what drove it: consolidation, having people bragging about abusing their marketing programs and encouraging other to do so, or both, or something else entirely. Would make an interesting read.
Until then all we can do is speculate.
Being coincidental is not the same thing as being causative; nor is it the same thing as being the program devaluation decision-maker.
Whatever “drove” the devaluations, the airline management figures were the ones that decided what to do with the programs and to devalue them. Bloggers and the program customer “gamers” didn’t decide to devalue the programs and do so; the bloggers and “gamers” didn’t write and rewrite the terms and conditions of the contracts of adhesion that are the airline loyalty programs. These massive devaluations and official program changes were done by airline management figures, not by bloggers and “gamers”.