I wish I could burn through my ca. 300k miles before the changes too but our family circumstances simply don't allow for that (caring for a family member together with other family members where it's too soon to say when we will be able to fly next year because it all has to be arranged towards the end of each year with the other side of the family and added to that we have a school aged child so we are tied to the school holidays). We already booked our family vacation to Canada in C this summer as a Meilenschnäppchen (yeah even with the horrendous surcharges I still got 2.6c per mile in value compared to a cash fare) so at least I used 165k miles for that.

I kind of hope the system means it finally makes sense to fly in Y in Europe using miles. I really don't care where or in what class I fly as long as I am getting at least 2c per mile in return value. The more the better obviously. If I can't get at least around 1.5c per mile value on redemptions then there's not much point in M&M for me anymore as I collect about two thirds of my miles via PayBack points and these can be cashed out at 1c each. Transfering them to M&M it's usually possible to get 1.20-1.30 Miles per point. I guess we will see soon enough.

I expect if M&M notices a complete collapse in redemptions they will have to adjust the algorithms in the dynamic pricing and/or the partner airline award chart because ultimately M&M sells the miles to third parties to use as a marketing tool and if nobody uses the services offered by those third parties because M&M is completely unattractive, then they will stop buying the miles from M&M. That's what I keep telling myself anyway.