chazas provides perhaps the first proof of what many of us discussed on this forum several months ago - that the FF program alliances will lead to more competition for award seats. In this case, someone who did not have enough miles in a single program to claim a free seat was able to do so by pooling his mileage from AA and US. I wonder how many other people are out there in similar mileage situations. Indeed, I don't have enough miles in either program to claim a first class ticket to Asia, but if I pool my miles I do. Things will only get worse as the uninformed start to realize that they can do this too. Ugh!