Originally Posted by Randy Petersen
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.
Randy, with all due respect, I don’t believe my earlier post mentioned (or even implied) anything about your expertise or your experience with FF programs, nor did I make any statements claiming I know more than you. In fact, in the course of racking up some 4000+ posts on FlyerTalk over the past seven years, I’m fairly certain there are at least several posts where I extolled your expertise / experience. I would be foolish not to acknowledge the expertise / experience of someone whose businesses are built on all things miles and points, and who deals with frequent flyer topics on a daily basis.
With regard to the issue at hand, it isn’t that I’m not satisfied with your response. I just disagree with the view, all semantics aside, that double miles awards are the “standard” award. I certainly appreciate your input on the historical changes in award costs as well as other program changes, although I’m not sure that newer members to FF programs are concerned with anything other than current (or future) award costs. When I look at awards, I see the airlines actively advertising award travel at 25K miles (U.S. domestic coach), not 50K miles. The credit cards firms that offer miles tied to the FF programs do the same. When people discuss awards here on FlyerTalk, the almost universal starting point of the discussions is the 25K award (or other capacity controlled award levels), not the 2X miles awards.
By the way, I think your idea on a “base” for saver awards is excellent. Hopefully, some of the programs will embrace and move forward with this concept.