That's my rule, too. However, what I've found for the trips I've booked lately is that price is hardly ever equal. In fact, for every trip I've booked for the last several months, one airline was MUCH cheaper than the others -- by more than $100 in every case. And the airline that was cheapest was different in every case!

That savings is the equivalent of getting a free ticket after only three or four roundtrips. Hardly any FF program could do better.

There is a kind of explanation: I monitor airfares to the places I want to go continuously, and I only buy tickets when the price drops below my thresholds. And then I buy them fast, before the price goes back up.

Although common wisdom says that when one airline drops fares drastically, others follow, I haven't found that to be practically true. Even when other airlines say they've dropped their fares, they often don't provide as many discount seats as the orginal airline. And sometimes they don't drop them at all.

For example, late last year Northwest Airlines had a few very short-term sales where roundrip SFO-CDG was $240 + taxes. They did this two or three times last fall, each time for just a few days. In each case no other airline came within $150 of this fare.

Despite all that I've accumlated enough FF miles to take several free trips. So it's not like I entirely agree with the news article either. But FF miles are definitely less important to me than price when it comes to choosing my flights.

Of course, I fly a lot less in total than many of you guys do. Even if I used the same airline for all my flights I would not have enough miles for elite status, which I understand is where the real FF benefits might come in.

Ed