Randy,

Correct me where I'm wrong (and I could be), but when I signed up for the prograns in the early 80's (and I'm guessing that's the same time that you signed up for the programs) most airlines were 25K (some even 20K - ie: Northwest Fly-writes) for a coach award without any capacity controls. This ticket could be booked at any travel agency, had no expedite fees, no Saturday night stay requirements, and thus was really a free ticket. That was a "standard" award ticket. The airlines then changed that standard award ticket so that it was what we now think of as a saver award. And then at a later date they introduced the new standard award tickets.

Mileage levels go up, rules change and that's all okay. But when an airline doesn' t make one seat available on a flight for a standard award ticket, at least IMHO that's not fair.

The airlines started out charging an expedite fee because an agent had to do "extra" work in order for you to receive your ticket in time for you to travel. Now you/we do our own booking and get charged a fee strictly because they can, and we don't have much of a choice but to pay it.

You can mention 50,000 free tickets being given away, or 50 million. But again IMHO if they give away enough miles for 1,000 tickets they should be obligated to make 1,000 tickets available. If they give away (and it was their choice to start selling miles) enough miles for 10 million tickets, then I think they ought to make 10 million seats available for "standard" award tickets.

Now I know you're not going to agree with that, but that's how I feel. And to counter what you might have to say about that maybe they shouldn't be selling so many miles at such a cheap price. For example, Delta Airlines is now going to require 250,000 mile to get a free ticket to Europe without any restrictions. And their logic, or concern is that too many people redeem 180K in the form of Amex/Membership Reward points and get a $7,000.00 ticket for doing so. But again, they created the situation. And the person who earns their miles by flying is the one being hurt.

All of the airlines (or most all) follow each other like blind dogs. If one does something the other does it because they feel the need to compete - without thinking about the end results.

I do think you have a different attitude that most people. The average person doesn't have 12 million miles to work with. The average person saves for a long time to get their "free" ticket. And then more often than not they can't get what they want. Yes thousands/millions of tickets get redeemed every year. And many people are happy. But you, and many of the people here on FlyerTalk are not the "average" traveler. And I don't think that average traveler (which is who I talk with every day) is all that happy with the programs as they are structured.

We are all told the programs could change, and they have. And very few if any changes have been for the better IMHO.