In the past 2 weeks or so, all 6 major US airlines announced schedule reduction. The prospect for award availability is only going to get worse, if not so already. There is an article somewhere that I remember saying that it'll take the airlines more than 100 years to redeem all the miles out there. With reduced schedule (even fewer award seats) and generous miles accural on cheap fares, something has to yield, right?

With the proposed beef-up Skyteam and UA-US alliance, I can see the trend of ever increasingly more miles chasing fewer seats. With codeshares, the top status tier is going to be easier to reach than ever. And that means fewer upgrades too...

Maybe not too soon in the future, the only way to redeem miles are cheap razors for 20000 miles.

[This message has been edited by FT wannabe (edited 08-23-2002).]