Originally Posted by MileKing
Randy, please, enough is enough with the "double miles award is not really double miles" and that double miles awards are "the standard award". You seem to be sounding this refrain more and more lately and this doesn't play well in Peoria or even here on FlyerTalk.
I don't understand what is wrong with calling a spade a spade in this instance. You can call it anything you want, but if it ain't available (the old standard awards) they just ain't available. It's like advertising a stereo or something on sale but never making them available for sale. If you can't but it, what's the point?
The vast majority of FlyerTalkers will not pay 2X miles for awards, whether capacity controlled or not, except in the most extreme conditions such as last minute, have to get there travel..
I guess I would like to say "and?" to that. There's no difference in the value of an award if the value of a FF mile is $0.02 and the "accessible" award is 25,000 miles or if the value of a FF mile is $0.01 and the "accessible" award is 50,000 miles. I use the quotes because it doesn't matter what you call it --it's like an airline advertising the fare but not the taxes. I don't care what the FARE itself is, I care what gets charged to my CC. End result of the math is that the value of the trip is $500.00. In neither case would I part with miles for a domestic ticket because I can almost always buy a revenue ticket for significantly less.
Before I was an elite, NW allowed upgrades on cheap fares for everybody. I thought that was a great use of my miles. Since '98, when I first enrolled in WP, I have NEVER felt that an advanced purchase coach ticket was a good use of my miles. Part of the problem is that you have to calculate the value of the miles NOT earned in the costs of the trip. On some trips, it's insignificant, on others, it can add up.
I'm not a student of the HISTORY of FF programs so I don't know what came first -- the chicken or the egg (Did the "price" of an award ticket go up or the flooding of the market with miles?). The PEOPLE that matter MOST to the airlines are those that generate significant revenue... IOW elites. To keep the elites happy wrt the "false advertising," they've multiplied the number of miles they give you for being a loyal customer. The net result is that the most loyal customers suffered no decrease in the "value" of their flying. As much as the flooding of non-flying miles has lowered the value of said miles, I can't fault the airlines' response to their bread and butter customers.