You forget to say that airlines like LX, Lh are very snobbish and those German, Swiss country club elite members do not appreciate some badly dressed schmuck in their LH FCT or their cabin.

There is a badly groomed blogger more like a backpacker who flies F and takes pictures of himself wearing flip flops and torn shorts. Probably has worms by the way he looks. :eek:

I think this commenter brings up what may really be the over-arching issue creeping up (though I don't know that I agree the UA hard product shortfalls alone are driving this latest UA decision). The mileage earning issue is just one aspect of it. The alliances are weakening.

Even though for someone like me who redeems for international Y mostly, and not J/F, this deval doesn't affect me much directly... I could see a time where UA invokes a differential rate approach to Y partner awards, too.

Don't stereotype. :confused:

I'm fairly sure the devaluation is from the singups from cc's. There's no way spending 5k to get at least $650 in value (and if you value ua at 1.5cpm or more), at least $750-1000 is sustainable for the banks.
I would say MS is a very small portion of miles generated.

Two things I'm curios about.

The banks buy the points. Instead of inflating points needed, certainly United could charge Chase more for them. Why inflate instate of charge more?

Also, my guess is United keeps a reserve or escrow account for points issued. They are essentially a currency and U would need to pay for them. If you inflate them all of a sudden you can lower your reserves and the money can come out of escrow and into U's pocket. Wouldn't this be a great way to boost earnings short term?

Cuz chase wouldn't be willing to pay more.

I think there's likely some truth to this theory, but it's hard to get a real sense for the scale. If VFTW's "monetary inflation" analysis is accurate (and it makes logical sense to me), then a group of people accumulating and redeeming huge stashes of miles is going to cause problems.

However, I don't have a good sense of whether we're talking about 1% of people causing a disproportionately high 10% of the "damage" due to playing the CC, MS, etc. game really hard vs. say a somewhat broader 10% of people doing a somewhat less disproportionately high (on a relative basis) 30-40% of the "damage". Whatever the number is, you can probably blame "those CC-whoring bloggers" for a reasonable chunk, but FT, Bank's advertising budgets, and even mainstream news coverage likely contribute in a pretty meaningful way.

It's really hard to estimate scale when we're talking about numbers this big, and I imagine all of us here have a pretty tilted view. I work in consulting, and while most everyone is mindful of points and miles and status and all that, I can't think of a single other person in my group of just under 100 that is anywhere near the level of crazy that I have (and I pale in comparison to many who I think are TRULY crazy :)). I'd say no more than 5 who are even 1/4 my level of crazy. No one is manufacturing spend, and only a small handful are churning cards (and their definition of "churning" is probably 3 cards a year). These are the anecdotes that lead me to believe that the game still just isn't that pervasive, but again, they're only anecdotes.

I woudl think anyone even getting only one of the csp/ua explorer and/or chaseinkplus/bold for the signup bonus wouldn't be quite feasible for united if even a portion of cardholders transfer points to ua.

That's very well said, I think. My anecdotal evidence is very much in line with yours, FWIW. Though as you've indicated, the fact is none of us here truly know for sure what the impacts are, to what extent, etc. Obviously the banks and airlines aren't going to tell us the whole truth...or perhaps even a sliver of it!;)

Just My Opinion
 

But I think you are all giving our group just a bit more credit than it deserves. Our blog readerships number in the thousands. UA passengers are in the millions.

Don't you all experience that 99% of the people you talk to about points and miles have their eyes glass over when you talk about credit cards and frequent flyer miles. Everybody is afraid of ruining their credit and they all know their are no seats available.

We are a tiny, tiny minority, that probably does nothing more than piss the airlines and banks off that we know how to work the system.

But the average traveler has no interest in our game.

It's all pointing fingers and who did what. Who knows, the 50k bonuses that thousands of us get might me as much or at least a significant portion of the miles that ua issue. remember, most travel hackers get their miles from credit card which is why you can go to the maldives for $148.02.

Bragging about how you are beating the system on a national level is very dumb. And now you get your just desserts bloggers! Enjoy your remaining award booking business with no space and 400 dollar credit card referrals.

Maybe you can blog about how to scam southwest. Congratulations on teaching these grifters how to fraud the system.

Many already do. Or did you miss the 30-days of WN Companion Pass posts throughout October??
Yes, as is FlyerTalk, MilePoint, DansDeals, BonusFeber, VFF, AFF and all the other online communities. When the game you play is based on winning at arbitrage it is rarely a good thing to have lots and lots of people aware of what is going on. That's a sure-fire way to draw attention to the "gaps" and engender change.

ETA: There is also the consideration that the programs have to deal with rising costs, just like other businesses, even without the "experts" who are gaming the system. Arguably the programs would be better off if they could adjust a little bit at a time rather than make huge changes every few years as customers wouldn't notice as much but that's a whole different can of worms.

This is the difference between hotel and airline schemes, though.

Hotel schemes MUST devalue, because earnings are based on room rate, and as inflation pushes up room rates, points become too easy to earn. Logically, if IHG kept an IC at 50,000 points, you'd be getting a free IC night per Holiday Inn Express paid night in 2060, assuming room rates are $5,000 per night by then.

Airline schemes are different. In theory, they should be a stable currency, because they are based on distance flown and that doesn't change. It should be inflation-free. But it isn't ....

"Loyalty" program management is responsible for devaluations as there is nothing which prohibited the program owners/managers from acquiring, holding and investing in hard currency reserves/assets by using the cash they got from customers using the "loyalty" program and being credited "miles"/"points" and doing so in order to fund the programs' sustainability with the return from those holdings/investments. In other words, the "loyalty" program could have been handled by the program operators/owners more like a well-managed insurance company and/or pension/retirement fund, and thus devaluations wouldn't necessarily be a reality for those miles/points already issued.

Some may think the "loyalty" programs are a sort of Ponzi scheme if not for the unilateral devaluations, but they don't need to be any more that than they need a devaluation -- at least if the owners/operators of these programs behaved differently.

Hopefully, the government regulators will get around to these kind of programs and at least greatly increase the disclosure requirements applicable in such situations. I'd welcome something akin to a prospectus and periodical reports of a sort that give way more details to the public about the operation and finances of these programs.

I could not disagree more. The only part which remains constant is the distance between the airports. Just about everything else on the cost side varies over time.

Put another way, the costs to me as a consumer to acquire nnn thousand points today is necessarily going to vary from the costs to acquire those last year, ten years ago or ten years in the future. The numbers are not stable at all.