Yes, but I am looking at the extra expense of paying up over 75,000 miles instead of 40,000. 54 segments x $30/segment comes to $1600 extra. I spend between 5K-6K a year on AS, so this represents a 30% increase. I have always been able to find a MR coming in at either <.05/EQM or <.02/RDM. And no, I won't do a TCON turn in coach thank you very much. I always looked for these fares across the AS network during their slow periods, times when they should be happy putting a butt in the seats and generating cashflow. Apparently this is no longer the case.
I think a lot of us here on FT would go out of our way to fly Alaska (often already at additional expense) for the FF benefits that accrued, even though we all know the service levels in many cases do not measure up to other airlines' offerings. In my case, I have about 40K/year where AS has been reasonably competitive on fares. Another 20K/year where they are not but I chose to fly them anyway because the ancillary benefits were worth it. Then it made sense to do 3MR TCONS to get me to 75K. With their new fare structure that is no longer the case.
To cite a current example: PDX-DEN. Alaska would charge me $102 - $150 and have me change planes in Seattle. Frontier will fly me nonstop for $49. Yes I know it is Frontier. Yes I know that IRROPS means I could be messed up. Because of the former value proposition, I would take Alaska and pay the extra $$ for a 1st class seat + the EQM/RDM (Like most of you, I use the RDM on Int'l Biz/1st).
Now, with the new value proposition, I did the math and decided it was easier and cheaper to just get to MVPG, be a free agent after that, and just buy miles at .02/RDM if/when I need them. I will fly less going forward, and generate less goodwill for AS (mainly from family/friends using the 8 GGUs -- now just 4, and most likely those will be for me).