OK, go ahead and educate me on your expertise with the reality tour thing.
The point I was making and apparently not to your satisfaction, was that I've been doing this for 20 years now and (full-blown member for the full 25 years of these programs) perhaps that is the difference in perspective. Perhaps you'd at least acknowledge that. When these programs were introduced nearly 25 years ago, there was no such thing as a 20K or 25K award. That was introduced nearly 8 years after their introduction and only as a balance against introducing expiring miles - miles which interesting enough with the larger programs, expired in three years no matter what kind of activity you had. Thus, the no-capacity award I was referring to was the original and "standard" award.
The confusion might be because of my historian view of changes, rather than a snapshot on "right now."
I'm sorry I do not know as much as you. Guess I've got a lot to learn. And it just may be a matter of semantics since some airlines use the term "standard" at the 40/50K level and others use it at the 20/25K level. But whatever it is, I'll look forward to learning a lot more from your posts.
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. 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.
The airlines have a very long road ahead of them if they intend to make 2X miles the "standard". And the biggest problem isn't even the perception that 2X miles is too much. The biggest problem is that almost no one values miles at 2.0+ cents any more.....that is "old thinking" that even most novices here on FlyerTalk realize is outdated. With credit card and other non-BIS miles making up more than 50% of mileage earned, 2X miles translates to value of less than 1.0 cent per mile. At those rates, the mileage house of cards comes tumbling down as I suspect most people will move from a mileage earning credit card to the now ubiquitous 1% cash back cards. That will put a permanent dent in the revenue and profits the airlines now enjoy from mileage sales, leading to additional cutbacks in award seats, basically the beginning of a never-ending death spiral.