Since the AA program was revamped, there's been a noticeable trend towards mileage inflation. With each new earning promotion seeming to offer more and more miles, my concern grows.

In particular, this year's renewed promotion offering 50 miles per dollar for charitable donations to Stand Up for Cancer when using an American Airlines AAdvantage Mastercard has caught my attention. First and foremost, it's worth acknowledging that the promotion (which offered similar mileage rewards last year) is undoubtedly for an excellent cause. The collaboration between AA and the card issuer to encourage donations is commendable, and as a cancer survivor myself, I truly hope that everyone contributes. It also helps, of course, that such donations are at least partially tax deductible.

However, as many on this forum have pointed out, there's a continuing problem with mileage inflation that promotions like this one seem to fuel. Business class tickets to popular overseas destinations have seen a dramatic increase in mileage cost with the introduction of dynamic award pricing, and the retooling of Advantage in terms of over-generous earning opportunities seems to have poured gasoline on this fire. This has me wondering whether the value of my hard-earned miles today will continue to diminish faster and faster over time. Roundtrip mileage redemptions in J exceeding 550k miles to destinations abroad are not uncommon these days. If this trend continues, will we soon find ourselves staring at the prospect of shelling out a million miles or more for a single business class ticket?

AA already seems to have at least somewhat pulled back the reigns on insane mileage earning opportunities from hotel bookings through its website (I earned 40k myself from a single stay earlier this year). But promotions like the current one for Stand Up to Cancer, while meritorious, have me even more concerned about the direction things are headed. Will next year's promotion earn 100 miles per dollar, and in turn will my next J award ticket to Madrid cost 850k miles each way? At some point the devaluation becomes a Ponzi scheme wherein AA will have no choice but to constantly increase award costs at the expense of past investment into the program by consumers.

Where will it end?