Couldn't agree with you more. Even low-tier status on airlines will typically require you to fly 25,000 miles per year. To put that in perspective, you'd need to fly round-trip 5 times between New York and Los Angeles just to hit the mileage requirement. Is it worth all that hassle just to get a free checked bag? Sure you could aim for a higher tier status which certainly has more perks but that requires more mileage (i.e. fly 50,000 miles per year) and a much larger investment on an airline (i.e. flying long haul international routes). On top of that airlines impose spending requirements, so you'll need to fork over a couple thousand on flying exclusively one airline just to meet that requirement. Finally a lot of the discount fares (i.e. basic economy) earn little or no mileage.

Even for myself, it's going to be difficult to maintain mid-tier (Gold) frequent flyer status this year United, and I fly almost exclusively with them. In fact the only reason I fly United is because I live in a highly competitive travel market (Toronto) where United must fight with domestic airlines to convince us Canucks that it's worth connecting through the US (and clearing US immigration) to make that international trip.

This year my planned/completed flights are (with pricing and milage when available):

• Cairo, Egypt to Luxor, Egypt - [1,000 miles round trip]
• Detroit to Vancouver, BC - [5,000 miles round trip]
• Toronto to San Juan, Puerto Rico - [5,000 miles roundtrip]
• Ottawa to Hong Kong [18,000 miles roundtrip]
• Toronto to San Francisco [5,000 miles roundtrip]
• Toronto to Honolulu - [9,000 miles roundtrip]
• Toronto to Manchester, UK [7,000 miles roundtrip]

In theory that should get me right at the 50,000 miles mark (I don't have a spend requirement since I'm a Canuck).

This doesn't include reward flights I've taken on United and Aeroplan which earn no mileage (i.e. Toronto to Dubai to Cairo to Zurich to Toronto or Ottawa to Iqaluit).

Safe Travels,

James