Originally Posted by Oceanbound222
I tried to book something using miles and when I got too picky, I was rudely informed that I was getting a "free ticket" and in so many words told I should be grateful.
I quickly informed this gal that the ticket was NOT free. I earned those miles just as one earns a salary. Miles are a currency that is earned.
I will never again use the phrase "free ticket" when getting a mileage flight because those miles were not given to us free. The price of getting miles is reflected in the ticket price, not to mention our loyalty to an airline.
If you paid higher prices to get tickets in higher classes so you could get miles faster, I see the point.
But if you bought only the lowest fares available, and those HAPPENED to give you miles, how are those miles not free (to you)?
Similarly, if you earn miles through a no-free credit card (such as one that gives you only 1 mile per 2 dollars spent directly into an airline's FF program, or a hotel one which you later transfer into miles), and it costs you nothing more to pay with that credit card (you carry no balance, of course!) than by any other means, how are those miles not free (to you)?
If you get bonus miles for an activity which costs you nothing in money (say, filling out a survey, or eating at a different restaurant that costs no more than the one you would have eaten at otherwise), how are those miles not free (to you), unless perhaps you count the cost of the extra time it takes you to get those bonus miles?
So while I would agree that miles are NOT NECESSARILY free (to the recipient), there are people who only collect miles when they can get them free (for example, they sign up with every FF program and still choose to fly whoever has the lowest price, and thus accumulate more slowly into a variety of programs), and never do anything to earn miles if it would cost them more than not earning miles, and still (over time) get enough miles for an award ticket. In those cases, how is it not a "free ticket" (at least in those months when a Security Fee is not imposed and on those award tickets where you don't have to pay taxes) for them?
(And I'm not talking about things seeming "free" because your employer paid the money. I'm talking about "free" miles even when speding your own dime on all these activities.)
Now, of course, if you consider your incremental time to have a monetary value, then even THINKING about miles is probably not free. But then, thiinking about whether anything is free is probably not free.
And in particular, spending time looking for the lowest fares is not free.
So it basically boils down to: Everyone has to do their OWN math.