Originally Posted by
sbrower
Hasn't the entire purpose of these programs been eliminated (I mean awards, not elite status). If tomorrow every airline in the world said "Our mileage/revenue earning program is ending in 30 days, you have three years to redeem and all award levels are dynamic." how would it change the airline industry? Which airlines would lose significant passenger revenue, if any?
The carriers are still under some legal pressure. Notwithstanding the legal language that amounts to "We can do anything we want and if you don't like it you can take a long walk off a short pier" there is still a threshold beyond which they would get people like FTC, DOT, and 50 state attorneys general (remember both Democratic and Republican travelers can get equally ticked off) hopping mad.
IIRC, in the mid-1990's, United basically created "old miles" and "new miles" and you had a certain period of time to redeem old miles on the old award chart. I think on the old award chart, two F tickets to Oz were 120K miles. Today, that would get you dropped off halfway between California and Hawaii on the outbound. If you're lucky.