I agree and I do not agree. Allow me to state my reasons. The key is not earning of miles, the key is the redemption of miles/points. Mileage junkies like you and me and other Gurus on this FT board have figured out the ins and out of the system.

The airlines/credit card companies and other creators of this currency know that all their customers are not that savvy in redemption of these points. That is why they are betting that the bubble will not burst.

You see most people will not try to cash an award till they have reached the 25K miles and then they realize that they neeed 35K miles because their is no availability. How many times you have seen a post from newbies thinking they need only 2000 or 3000 miles to get an award. I wonder how many of those people were able to redeem.

I have a simple rule. I want to redeem as many miles as soon as possible. I get nervous if my mileage balances grow faster than my redemption.

Here is an example of the mileage bubble. RT flight from PHL-TUS $227 on CO earns 227 miles on AMEX MR and apx 5500 onepass miles. The 5000 miles are worth about $150 for an AMTRAK 1 zone NE corridor unreserved redemption. I would redeem 5 of those redemptions before trying for an airline redemption on CO/DL/NW. the reason is simple. The air ticket redemption is worth $400 to me ( 1.6 cents/mile). The Amtrak route is worth $750 to me. Besides, I can redeem everytime I have 5000 miles. I sometimes wonder how many people outside of FT know about it.

So either one get the PHL-TUS trip for $75 and paid the $150 for the AMTRAK ticket. Or the Amtrak ticket was free for every PHL-TUS trip! Either way, the genie is out of the bag. If more people (ab)used the system as every good FTer then the bubble might burst! Otherwise, we will go on as any other ecosystem, blind leading the blind!