Unfortunately I fall into the same boat as others - unwilling to spend a 'measly' $200 and to just 'trust' someone I do not personally know, though I hasten to add with all due speed that Randy has given no one cause for distrust!!! The point being made is that, if you do not know the financial ability of AwardGuard to be able to deal with a major airline going under, and yet you pony that 'measly' $200 up, it's not just that $200 you'd be out - you'd also be out the MILES that you were counting on to be protected. I think this program is innovative, but so did people who bought into the concept of CyberRebate.com with 100% returns on purchases, and that company never made their financial information available at any time. I am only saying this because with any insurance program, it is crucial to the purchaser to be sure the insurer, through protected assets or reinsurance, actually will be able to pay off claims made.

Having said this, I wish there was a way to know for certain of the viability of this program as I would be tempted to join, though only with an option to purchase the amount of coverage I needed. Something odd, though, not with AwardGuard but the concept - it seems to be that the conditions for actually making a claim will be almost non-existent, for an airline of any size to just cease operations without bankruptcy proceedings and being absorbed into another airline even now is very slim. Having said that, one wonders if that were true then why haven't major insurers like State Farm and the like offered programs like this? You'd think they'd be fat cash cows, much like a lot of those warranties that Best Buy and others offer any time you buy anything larger than a thimble.

I assume AwardGuard is held by a company and it must be privately held, so profit margins would be difficult to determine. I assume the existence of this Website is directly linked to marketing the program, though I certainly have no complaints with that or this site. I would have to also agree with another opinion expressed, but in a different way - I think there wouldn't be very much cost involved in offering coverage per 100K miles and simply allowing people to purchase what they need and then add on later. For instance, I have around 400K miles total - why should the guy with 100K or 2 million miles pay the same price, when in one case one gets 1/4 the benefits and the other guy gets 5 times the benefits, all for the same price. I am cudgeling my brain but fail to see how offering flexibility to purchase block coverage like this would detriment AwardGuard - unless, perhaps, that people would not have to pay as much to get the coverage they want. Supply and demand at work - if Randy's program is the only one offering the coverage, it's not as if you have a choice if you want insurance - you pay the price. Considering that there's a lot of money in the pockets of those who frequent the site, probably not a lot of thought is given to $200, and it seems to me to be smart marketing on Randy's part to charge just one price, because why offer choice when no competition exists? There is nothing wrong with this at all - he thought up the concept, he put it together, he markets it - he doesn't force anyone to buy it nor blankets my mailbox with solicitations - and some of the profits surely help to keep this site going, right?

With all that said, I'll keep my $200 until I have reasonable knowledge of AwardGuard's financial stability to pay off in the event of a major airline going under, since that's all I fly. I'd also like to know (and it's probably somewhere on this site) exactly how many current paid members there are in this program? Final point - assume a major airline does go out of business and AwardGuard does cover the miles - don't you think Randy would have to drastically increase the cost of future memberships if he wanted to continue in business, o the point where no one would want it? And if he didn't or couldn't continue in the business, all of the rest of the members who have miles covered under airlines other than the dead one will be out of luck and out of their membership fee, even if Randy had the best of intentions, he could still be forced into bankruptcy himself.