Don't disagree with the majority of your post.In fact it seems to be very well stated and accurate
Accept for the above comment.
I certainly don't want to be a nit picker but Randy doesn't award any Freddie Awards except to those that win and are chosen by the traveling public from around the world.
And as far as I know the public has spoken loudly two or three years ago by simply no longer voting Continental Program of the year as it had in past.
As long as Continental chooses to hoard seats and be stingy I am sure many will heed the message and vote with their wallets and feet elsewhere .
As many I know have done for years.
I caught on to the scheme years ago while Gold was still the top tier.
I estimate the potential revenue over the years just from my own pullout to be over 100 K had I stayed with them.

Im miles alone when I pulled the plug I was at 750 K
Had I stayed with them that travel and partner revenue would have all been theirs.
I can just imagine what they lose from disatisfied customers.
To this day I wonder why others were so slow to smell the coffee?
I estimate easily 6 or 7 years of bad availability.
Perhaps like myself many collected them first in trust expecting reasonable success when they went to redeem............
Cheers