After some heated discussion in another forum, I am curious how frequent flyers view their benefits (both miles and status benefits).

When you earn status or miles under a certain set of benefits, do you feel that airlines are legally obligated to maintain the same level of benefits? Are airlines morally obligated? Or is it all a giant gamble that future benefits will justify current efforts to earn those benefits, but we accept the fact that it might all change?

Just to use a couple of examples... DL used to give out SWU's to it's top elites in it;s begininng of year packets. After many DL flyers earned or re-earned status for 2001, they found out that the most valuable (to many) part of the elite status would be discountinued. Was this wrong (legally or morally) on DL's part or just part of the frequent flyer lottery? What if you a particular round-trip award cost 40K miles during the time that you earned your miles and then it suddenly cost 60K miles when you wanted to redeem those miles?

I know that many of us (including myself) take mileage runs specifically for miles or status. We calculate what we think the present value of these future benefits against the current cost in time and money. What would you do if you spent money on mileage runs and ultimately through reduction in benefits the ultimate value of those runs turned out to be less than the cost? How would you react towards the airline in question, mileage runs in general, or flying in general?

We have a cult of frequent flyers here. I'm just wondering what people really feel they are getting with frequent flyer benefits.