I think I saw all the posts in this new thread, and this wasn't mentioned, but sorry if I missed it.

One thing interesting to me is that this seems to be another "tweak" in the now 10-ish year period of going from miles being earned based on how long the flight was to how much each flight costs. Yes, I realize that people used to game the system by finding really cheap SIN runs, and getting tons of miles.

I just looked at the mileage I got for a recent short domestic trip with a connection to SAV (I just dropped from Silver to peon so 5x). The total miles using a GC route calculator is 1900 miles . The miles I got "via spend" (and without adding in the extra kick I will get from my credit card as a separate transaction later!) is 2,200.

I have forgotten the mileage accrual for flights from 10 years ago but I think it was like 1.25 * miles for Silver (ie a 25% bonus on top of the distance flown). So that would have been about 2400 miles for the trip I just took.

I am sure they have all the data to see the difference, but it seems to me that with the new rules we are getting closer to what we got 10 years ago before spend became the factor. Nowadays, for me at least, with mostly my own spending, I am spending less than $500 on a ticket and getting about 2,500 miles.

Last point - its definitely weird to see mileage accrual for a trip be only like 300 miles for a short leg to a hub! Miss the 500 mile minimums - but I guess we still have them for MM qualification.