Didn’t want to creep another thread hence this new thread. We frequently read about miles devaluation yet we rarely read about more lucrative earning opportunities. I can recall churning NCNB Piedmont credit cards 20-25 years ago for 2000 and 2500 mile intro bonuses. Prior to 2010 bonuses of 20000 or 25000 were the standard. In the past couple of years we’ve seen bonuses of 50000 and 75000 and even 100000. Now some people claim a card offering less than 40000 “isn’t worth it”.

Certainly a mile traveled is still a mile earned and that hasn’t changed for 25 years. If anything BIS miles earning opportunities have decreased as 500 and 1000 minimum miles per segment have disappeared and double and triple RDM promotions (for everyone) are mostly a thing of the past. (I did love those Norfolk-Atlantic City flights on USAir connecting in Philly or BWI with a 1000 mile minimum and triple miles thus 12000 miles for a 400 mile inexpensive roundtrip that was sometimes reimbursed by a casino. Wish I knew then what I know now!)

But since many agree that credit card bonuses are the most lucrative way of earning miles today it could be argued that devaluation is not occurring. 20 years ago it took 10 credit card intro bonuses to get an award ticket, today it might only take 1 or 0.5 similar bonuses.

Just wondering how others look at it.

You forgot to mention the fact that award chart redemptions have also gone up, significantly.

I get your point....for example now you can earn up to 9 points in hilton with the surpass card, 6 for select categories, 3 standad. And you can get 50K-70K sign up bonus. Before the standard was only 1 or 2 points. But, hilton properties are up to category 7 for 50K points per night! In 2006 I did a eurotrip and stayed at Scandic chain that used to be in the hilton group for 10K per night! 10 nights for 100k!! Point stretchers for 12K, lowest category 7.5K, and there were many of them! Now an Average hotel is 30K, 3 times as much!

Before you could churn CC every 90 days, example a Citi AA Mastercard, true the bonus was only 25k, but in a year at least 100K. I churned for many years! Now you can get 75K for one card, and maybe not be eligable for another 18 months!

Yes, now it is easier to get an enormous amount of miles, SPG 30K, BA 100K, capital1 100k, Amex Plat 100K, etc, etc, but some programs, such as BA have certainly devalued!

I'm sure we'll see devaluations of some programs to come in line with others, e.g. AA might devalue post-bankruptcy. But remember the banks are actually paying for these miles, so in theory there should be graphs somewhere of what a single Delta mile has cost over time to financial institutions or middlemen like Cartera. Of course originally miles weren't being "sold" but certainly over the past 10 years there must be data like that (although I'm sure it's private).

I think some of the banks have begun to catch on to the churning game, we've seen some clamp down and the offers certainly aren't as lucrative now as last spring/summer. I'm sure there will continue to be great offers, but I remember in July/August there were posters who had racked up close to a million miles in just 2-3 months off of Chase/Amex's liberal policies of reconsideration and "bumping the bonus."

I do think the rate of devaluation is bound to decrease. What changes though are some of the rules surrounding redemption, to make redemptions cost less to the airlines. So even if quantity of miles for r/t air travel stays roughly the same from here on out for a decade, I'm sure we'll see more restrictions that curtail some of the amazing "aspirational awards" that those on flyertalk are great at weaseling out of the arcane rules the airlines have for redemptions. The recent BA program changes seem to be in line with this. For lots of normal fliers who don't carefully plan their redemptions they don't seem to be a big devaluation (indeed the YQ fees are the bigger of the two problems for most folks), but for the travel savvy on FT I expect further devaluations of the most lucrative front-cabin awards maximized with crazy routing.