Absolutely right. They are award tickets, not free tickets.

I once asked an agent in a similar situation "Do you ever think about how many hours I spent in your planes to earn those miles, and how much money I spent to pay your salary while I was doing it?"

The agent's attitude changed immediately. I'd like to believe that it stayed changed, if not forever after, at least for the next few people who booked international J awards.

We should, however, not be too harsh on these folks. They have a job most of us on FT would not take, and they don't get rich doing it.