[QUOTE]Originally posted by Randy Petersen:
" ... Statisically there seems to be other facts. From 1993 to 2001 airlines gave away 58% more awards during this period - from 8.3 million (1993) to 13.2 million (2001) on an annual basis. "

Thanks, Randy, for those interesting statistics that you were pointing to. Whilst the number of awards given out appears to have increased significantly (as you indicated, 58% over the period 1993 to 2002), the key question remains:

Is the ratio of outstanding miles to available awards getting better or worse?

If the statistics are anything to go by, an interesting piece of data in attempting to answer this question is the fact that cumulative unreedemed miles (pogram liability) has in the same period increased over 420% (from 1867.1 billion in 1993 to 7888.6 billion in 2002).

Surely, unless airlines are increasing the availability of redemption opportunities in the same proportion/rate that they are handing out new miles, the value of an individual's miles has got to be going down!