When United first introduced its frequent flyer program the most critical aspect for management was to make certain that members would use their awards for discretionary leisure travel or gift them to family members. The biggest fear was that frequent flyers might use their award travel to offset their business travel - which kills the golden goose of revenue.
So United was shrewd enough to offer enticing travel opportunities that were just too hard to pass up, such as (1) reduced mileage redemption for two award seats in lieu of one; (2) easy availability of premium seats to popular family destinations like Honolulu, Las Vegas and Orlando; and (3) amazing service to those vacation destinations despite the fact that those routes were never as profitable as business destinations.
As a result United could count on guys like me taking the wife and kids to Hawaii or Disney World in First Class, burning a couple hundred thousand miles, and otherwise redeeming seats that we would have never purchased. (Young families don't pay to fly their kids First Class anywhere, and with the exception of business travelers United doesn't fill it's FC cabins with full revenue passengers on it's discretionary destinations - these are intensely competitive routes that are incredibly price elastic).
The empty suits at WHQ that have now made award redemption much harder - and it IS virtually impossible to redeem seats for your entire family - which results in guys like me redeeming my points for First International which would have been revenue, because it's relatively easier to get a single FC seat across the Pacific or the Atlantic than it is to get four FC seats to HNL. And the way Inventory Control opens up seats at the last minute works out perfectly for business travelers like me who make their travel plans late
(Folks planning family trips CAN'T wait until a couple of weeks prior to departure so there's another reason why so many miles get used for business
)
So, I save $12,000 on a business trip and spend $2400 flying the four of us to HNL in coach. And the joke is that it's virtually impossible for me to use my miles any other way. They really are empty suits!
