A tad OT.
Just some new year's reflection, but I still recall the disappointment I had felt when my beloved hometown Virgin America Airways was taken over by some outfit called Alaska. I suspect, like many in the Bay Area, I was pretty upset and frustrated, and voiced some frustrations on here. While I don't recall who, but someone here on the AS forum made a simple yet, to me, profound statement, "AS is the SPG of airlines."
Whoever that person was, he/she could not have been more right.