My situation is that I live in an apartment of my father's house rent-free. I pay just for my electric bill.
I also pay for internet and a cell phone plan (which I don't charge to my cc because Boost Mobile charges me taxes for this, whereas, if I pay at my local check cashing place they do not).
I cancelled my cable years ago; I no longer own a car (I live in NY, where it is not necessary), and the weekly pocket money I allow myself is currently $150.
My annual travel budget is limited to $5,000.
I allow a few thousand dollars for other categories (e.g. "toiletries", "stationery", "gifts", "art supplies" etc).
In all, I spend about 18k a year. The rest goes into my investments.
My goal is to retire early and live off my investment returns.
I am single, with no kids, and I plan to stay this way.

A car is not necessary in NY? Does that mean NYC? If so, $150/week?

True but you live and learn, or you die and I'm still kicking.

I just have to get my wife to buy in and go as hard as I am. We are planning to go to AUS and maybe NZ and AA business class is 125k while 1w explorer PDX-LAX-SYD-AUK-SYD-LAX-PDX is like 130k business, but the wifey has problems "playing games" with money, so it may be a stretch to get her to 130k AA. AS well as the fact her job will only giver her 10 days off and, while fine for Aus OR NZ, to do BOTH would be a bit of a stretch time wise, might just have to bite the bullet and just to Aus, (her #1 bucket list) business there and 1st back routing through LAX so we can hit the qantas 380 first (MY bucket list).

I think it is important to note for OP that cards like the US airways MC, the AA cards, and the SPG amex dump points directly into your FF account. So cancelling the card does not mean you lose the points.

Cards like Amex MR and Chase UR can transfer to many airline and hotel partners, but if you cancel the card you lose any points you have yet to transfer.

This is an important piece of the puzzle. I know friends of mine feel pressured to use all their miles before the Annual Fee hits, and then I explain to them that they can cancel the card and not lose the miles. (The Chase United Explorer card is a good example of this).

PDX: Looks like you're on your way to some great trips, just make sure to post and ask for advice on redemptions here on FT. Redeeming is just as important as earning--if can get 2 trips out of the same amount of miles, you've in effect doubled your point total. PM with any questions, already far enough off topic :P

I am voracious in my studies, I just dont post here much. Just because you do not post does not mean you do not learn and Im a quick study :cool:;)

If you need meet $3K spend requirement for CC sign-on bonus
(1) prepay internet provider, if monthly cost is $50 then prepay 12 month in advance ($600);
(2) prepay transportation in NYC, e.g., 6 metrocards each loaded with 30-day unlimited or pay-per-ride whichever fits your commute needs ($600)
(3) purchase store gift/cash cards for future use - grocery store, electronics store, costco etc ($500 to $1000)
(4) purchase generic Amex gift cards, e.g., 6*$500=$3K (mission accomplished). Be sure to focus on the largest denomination gift card to save on surcharge (each card costs $5.95, so effectively you incur ~$36 fee but a great deal b/c you get the sign-on bonus). These are examples of "normal" ways to extend the time period to spend the $3K, in last example you can use your Amex gift cards to pay for any regular purchases down the road.

BTW, there is no need to report your exact income on an internet discussion forum.

Who said you need to redeem your Explorer award with the most unfavorable way?

May be you have no idea on what "Maximizing the value" means? How about a more layman term of "Sweet Spot"?

You say you know about Explorer award ... If you really do, you would realize that it is rather difficult to redeem the lowest level because, guess what, the rule requires you fly 2 oneworld partner airlines other than AA... Try to construct such an itinerary that would be in the 0 to 1500 miles... On top of that, it is the most ineffective way to use Explorer award which should NOT be used when a regular award would suffice.

Furthermore, the Explorer award is not just distance based, it has its own rules which aint anything similar to your regular award as you know it.

But wait, since the proud example of your redemption is a rather ineffective way of using miles, may be indeed "maximization of value" is not in your tool box.

Your example just goes to show that you have the least idea how to use an Explorer award. The Explorer award would be most advantageous when it costs LESS to travel the same distance, AND allow you to visit many places, when multiple regular awards would be needed to do so. Again, your math is wrong because you have no idea what kind of math is actually needed to decide when to use an Explorer award. Of course if you can manufacture miles from the thin air with unlimited supply, that who cares how to use them to get the most out of such? Unfortunately you dont have such ability. So may be learning how to maximize the value of your miles is not too hard a concept to grasp?

Like I said, I should not pick thru someone's feel-good bubble. If you dont want to expand your horizon to learn something new, that is your choice. Hopefully others who read the thread would be able to think further and explore others ideas and suggestions, thus be better off in getting their award trips "worth" more, not just saving a few hundred bucks here and there but for a trip they would otherwise may not take due to affordability.

There are a lot of ways to redeem awards, yours happen to be one of the rather ineffective way. Most of us here cannot manufacture miles at will. So this is a precious resource. Some can make theirs worth like gold, but others may just get the worth of coal... Again, it is an option to each their own. @:-)

No wonder there is an old saying about Ignorance is a Bliss. Indeed.

Here is an Explorer award I had done - started from West Coast or cutting out Japan, you can do it with 130K.

MIA-LAX-AKL-SYD-SIN-KUL-HKG-TPE-ICN-KIX-CTS-NRT-SF0-LAS

Every city was a stopover. Business class all the way except the domestic Japan segments because JL only has First or Coach for the domestic flights and it would not let business class ticket holder sits in first class like the domestic US airlines do.

So if you can do a trip to Australia / NZ with 130K why would you waste the 60K on your PDX/SFO round trip? Unless you are brain dead, or you want to argue for argument sake. I suspect the latter not the former. lol.

(1) This sounds like an idea. I will check into it. My provider is Cablevision (in Brooklyn), and I don't yet know if they allow this option.

(2) I guess I'm lucky with this one, as I am a NYC subway train operator. I get a permanent unlimited free pass. It would've been a good idea, though.

(3) I never understood the draw of this one, even though a lot of people mention it.
You're basically borrowing from Peter to pay Paul. Unfortunately, once you've paid Paul, now you have to pay Peter, again. So, I don't see how people actually get somewhere with this method. Maybe I'm missing something.....

(4) This one is very similar to #3. Great, you've met the minimum spend for a credit card, for now. But, then, what do you do with 3k of Amex gift cards? You have to use them, which will take you away from from the spending requirement for your next app-o-rama in 3 months.

Sorry if I sound like I'm trying to be negative. I'm not. I'm only being pragmatic and rational.

You must meet spending requirements in X months for new cards. So you do shift the spending--as you say borrowing peter to pay Paul. In the process Peter pays you handsomely, and in a few months (or a year) you've used up the cards and all is well. You just need to float the cash for a few months, and pay yourself back as you use the gift cards.

Especially for someone in your situation 3 & 4 would be the only way you could hit some spending requirements. Don't be so negative about it--think of the payoff if you do this. You'd shift $3-$5k in spending forward for X months and net $1000 or more. You say you're into investing--think of that as a 20%-33% return on your money for 6 months of lending it to yourself. That's a 40%-66% annual ROI!

YOU did

I am simply using your parameters YOU set on how to use 1w explorer pts, on my AR situation in my current situation. You said to use explorer points and due to the fact I spent 65k pts for my trip to MDZ, I extrapolate it out to apply what you were saying to the situation we were talking about, ie using 65k 1w EX points which from PDX could get me to Billings, MT, (no desire) Spokane, or SFO (only city I might think of going with in 1500m RT) LAS is 755m each way or 1510m total, requiring, 75k pts for business class.

You said 130k miles, would give me

neglecting the fact that I redeemed TWO tickets to S America for 130 NOT one, I simply educated you on how redeeming 65k miles on a 1w explorer fare worked. NOT that I would do that, but to illustrate how to do it for your purposes. The route I flew was 13653 miles which equates to 115k per person round trip business at the 1w explorer rate.

You were comparing 1w explorer COACH rates vs my AA coach and UA business.

Why you keep commenting on how YOU would do a trip is irrelevant, I know how to do a 1w explorer trip, so you commenting on how to do it is asinine at best ridiculous in reality. I understand my situation and how to book trips, and do NOT for a second, let my low post count fool you, which I suspect is, into thinking I am any less informed as you.

This is the reason over the past few years I have not posted here.

You might have a misconception that everyone here is doing AOR, let alone at 3 month intervals. I would say this is far from the majority of FT members as a whole. You'd see FT people enjoy travel and people make the best of their work travel, if you venture out of MilesBuzz/CreditCard forums to read/participate other forums here on FT. If your spending habit does not afford you a certain way of getting CCs or frequency of associated travel (in luxury), then you need be flexible and adapt to your life style. In stead of a grand scheme of AOR, I suggest you first devise a (travel) goal and start accumulate miles/points towards it -- and read more FT forums to help you broaden your horizon.

About a month ago, after reading countless postings and blogs about the miles game, I finally decided that my first goal would be to earn an international Business (or First) Class ticket. I thought this would be relatively easy. All I would have to do is apply for a bunch of credit cards whose miles and points could be transferred to airlines within one alliance. The only hard part--I thought--would be picking which alliance, and which frequent flyer program in that alliance was best to pool my combined miles and points in.
Man, was I wrong.
I recently discovered that ff miles from different airlines within the same alliance cannot be combined.
Not only that, I also found out that you cannot even redeem miles + cash to earn an international business class flight, which would have been a tremendous help, considering how hard it would be to pool 100,000 miles+ in just one ff program.
So, to answer your statement, the only reasonable alternative to all this is to do app-o-ramas frequently, in hopes of accumulation (eventually) enough miles in a single ff program to earn a premium cabin flight.
If there is an easier way to achieve this, please enlighten me, as I am quite desperate to know.

You joined FT in April 2011 and yet so far have not even discovered the AA credit cards? You can get 50K miles each and applying 2 cards at the same time would net you 100K plus after you meet the spend requirement. If you want to go next with star alliance, next time you could get UA card and Sapphire Preferred card (and supplement with Freedom at a future time) should get you on your merry way (for another trip). Many posters have been telling you all these as early as in Post #3.

But this still leaves the problem of having thousands of dollars left on gift cards that you still have to spend....sometime. Whether that's now, or later on, this will necessarily interfere with one (or several) of your app-o-rama minimum spend requirements. You will have to pay either Peter or Paul sometime, so it is a zero-sum game.
Considering that you need about 100k miles for an international r/t business class ticket in one frequent flyer program, you will necessarily have to do frequent app-o-ramas (and meet the minimum spends) to have any hope of achieving this kind of mileage in a single program. This, by itself, is a struggle. But, to have the added burden of also having to get rid of thousands of dollars on gift cards becomes overwhelming.
Now, if you could buy gift cards; get the bonus miles, and then return the gift cards for a cash refund (without losing the miles), it would be a bonanza. But, anything short of this just comes up......short.

In light of what you're telling me I may be able to do the gift card hustle in this case, even though this will mean that I will spend months trying to get rid of thousands of dollars on gift cards-- and American Express gift cards at that (which are not as accepted as others).
Of course, this will mean that I won't be able to do frequent app-o-ramas, but I will have enough miles (in AAdvantage) to redeem for my r/t international Business class flight.
Yes, I have been a member since 2011, but I only very recently discovered the miles game. I'm ashamed of this, and I want to kick myself for not starting many years earlier, when offers and terms and conditions were much more favorable, and when there were much fewer people participating.

True to a certain extent, but keep in mind that many here do exactly this and are capable of doing multiple app sprees to gain those miles. Also keep in mind that although you cannot combine miles from different airlines, a number of airlines, including AA, BA, and UA allow one-way award redemptions--so if you get an AA card with a 50K signup bonus and a UA card with a 50K signup bonus, you can probably structure a low or saver biz award itinerary on two airlines, each one way.

There are also ways to increase spending somewhat artificially. I don't use these methods, partially because my spending patterns allow me to earn more than enough for my travel needs, but I don't condemn them anymore either. The late, lamented Mint was one way of increasing spending, but there are threads in MilesBuzz on other currently operating schemes as well. My only caution about such measures is that it appears that done clumsily, these methods might get you into trouble with certain financial institutions, but there are plenty of posts in those threads from folks who have been doing this for a long time without negative consequences so I'd suggest having a look at some of those threads to get an idea. For a start, try this one: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...tting+spending.

In addition, there are occasional promotions where you can earn 2-10K in one small transaction. Netflix has had promotions offering varying levels of airline miles for signing up. I earned 2500 AA miles and 4K UA miles this way. A Sunday subscription to the NY Times for 60 days got another 2000 AA miles. It's not much, but if you can get 50K through a card, another 10K or more will help increase your options.

One final thought: you might want to lower your travel goal. I know you want to fly business class. It is a nice way to fly, but keep in mind, it's only 8-10 hours for many flights unless you're headed to Asia, Africa, or Australia. For the majority of flights many of us will take, business is a nice convenience and not a necessity. Until two years ago, all of my TATLs had been in economy, and although I was becoming increasingly uncomfortable and unproductive on my arrival day (I'm just not capable of sleeping in an economy seat), I still got where I wanted to go and accepted my discomfort in order to experience the places I'd wanted to go all my life.

Figure on using your miles for economy and take advantage of low season awards when possible. AA runs those 40K redemptions to Europe from mid-October to mid-May. That makes a trip possible solely by getting one card. Once you've enjoyed that first trip, you'll figure out whether you actually need the comfort of business class or whether you're just as happy sitting back in coach so that you can take more trips later.

You are making a couple of incorrect assumptions:

-You do not have to apply for an app-o-rama every 3 months. You not only do not, you likely cannot do so. You'll need to wait 12-18+ months for some cards, and for others you may never again be able to apply for them.

-You do not need 100k in one program. You also have the possibility of using two one way awards from two different programs.

-It is hard work to do any of this.

-You can gain 0 miles right now by doing absolutely nothing, or gain 50,000-100,000 with a little bit of work. So if you prefer to do nothing and have no miles, good. But you need to add a value to the miles. When you discredit them as having no value then it is easy to say things like getting "rid" of gift cards is overwhelming. Remember your goal is a $4,000 flight.

If you do the following then it is not a zero sum game:

Deposit $5k in bank account.
Buy gift cards to cover minimum spending -$3k
Pay off $3k Credit Card bill from bank account
Now you have an asset--$3k in gift cards, and no liability.
Each time you use the gift card deposit a matching amount back into bank account. if you spend $100 a week, deposit $100. Yes this will take you 30 weeks to pay yourself back. In the meantime you'll earn many miles because you have hit the minimum spending.

Examples:

#1- Apply for 2x AA cards and you'll have 106k AA miles. $6k purchases in 4 months. Using the above this would take you 60 weeks to pay back at $100 a week.

or

#2 Apply for 1x Chase MP explorer-55K after $1k spend
Apply for 1x Chase Sapphire Preferred 40k after $3k in spending.
You will have 98k United Miles, and will take 40 weeks to pay yourself back.

One year later do the other example for your next trip.

People have told you how to do it, and it doesn't seem like you really want to put forth any effort at all. But yes, especially with the relatively small amount you spend on cards (and your unwillingness to take the steps that could at least modestly increase that), you will not be going to Europe in business class next month. However, over, say, 18 months or so, you could get the two AA cards, Chase Freedom, Chase Sapphire Preferred, and United MP. Yes, given your spending pattern you would probably have to buy some gift cards to meet the spend and pay them down over time. But at the end of that process you could have 100k (50k*2) AA miles and 105k United miles (10k+40k+55k) from the signup bonuses, plus some extra from the actual spending. Whether that's worth it is really up to you.

Two other things:

Yes, you can sell gift cards, probably for 85-90 cents or so on the dollar. Not a great deal, but it could be worth it for a really good signup bonus. For instance if you just bought $3000 worth of gift cards to get the 50k bonus and you could sell only them for $2550 (85 cents/dollar), you'd be effectively buying AA miles for 0.9 cents each, well below their value. And that would be getting a pretty bad deal on the gift cards.

If cash+miles appeals to you, look into Avianca/Taca. Just be warned that you're not going to be getting very many "free" Avianca miles from credit card signup bonuses. Mostly that program is just a way to buy premium-cabin international flights at a discount.

I suggested Amex gift cards because I can easily find the $500 denomination at my local grocery store while the MC/Visa gift cards they have available are $200 or lower. If you don't mind paying some extra fee with smaller denomination gift cards or can find large denomination MC/visa gift cards, then by all means go with that. I don't buy thousands of dollars worth of gift cards at once, instead I spread them out over time and only purchase one gift card at a time as needed (in my case its when I pay for grocery shopping).

+1 If you are on a limited (miles) budget and want to see the world, save the miles of flying in comfort (business class) for trips to Asia (and similar farther away places). Flying from NYC to Europe is very doable in coach, and you can also consider mixing it up (one way in coach and another in business). Also invest sometime to study the airline mileage redemption rules to take advantage of free stopover and open jaw, and potentially combine multiple destinations in one trip.

This is an excellent point.
The funny part is that I already knew about this. But, being a newbie, it didn't naturally come to my mind that this is a great way of circumventing the high cost of miles required for r/t international business class redeemed in one ff program.




Actually, I have been a semi-avid traveler for several years now. So far, I have been to 13 countries around the world. Unfortunately, all of these international flights were in Economy Class. This is exactly why I'm so adamant about wanting to fly in Business Class (at least).
The last trip I took was to Thailand (via Hong Kong) in CX economy. I even paid an extra $100 to purchase an exit row seat (31a). The trip was nearly 16 hours long, and, let me tell you, it almost killed me. Needless to say I got virtually no sleep. It took me 3 precious days of my vacation to recover from this.

Yep. Especially because the OP is in New York, he can take advantage of AA's stopover rule to create the first half of a domestic RT. Although this thread talks about using the stopover on the outward bound portion of a flight from SFO, the principles are the same if JFK is the originating airport.

Just as a quick example. If you did JFK-LHR (ignoring for the moment the potential for huge fuel surcharges if your flight ends up on BA metal) on a MileSAAver award during the offseason, you could structure LHR-JFK-SFO on the way back. The award cost for JFK-LHR-JFK-SFO would be the same as for JFK-LHR-JFK, 40K miles. You have a year to complete travel on the JFK-SFO leg left from your "stopover," so you could possibly book a MileSAAver SFO-JFK award to complete the second trip at 12.5K.

In other words, you could potentially spend 110K on AAnytime economy awards for JFK-LHR-JFK and JFK-SFO-JFK--or 52.5K as set forth above.

If you have limited means to gather miles, make your goals realistic and learn how to use the rules to stretch the value of your miles. Trying to do a business class award with limited means is like a hungry, unemployed man taking his last $500 for dinner at Per Se. Might be a delicious dinner, but it's almost certainly not a wise use of $500 for him.

Very excellent point. I should have thought of this myself. This will give me some much-needed flexibility.




Thank you much for this suggestion. This actually sounds workable. I am now in the process of putting together an app-o-rama using one of these two options as the centerpiece.
Question from a newbie: In addition to these 2 options you suggest, should I also apply for other cc's that have no minimum spend requirement, just to get the ball rolling with those miles?

did you not read my post about Avianca/TACA Lifemiles? In that program, you can do cash+ points.

Go and study this thread: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/other...gram-star.html

I kind of disagree. With signup bonuses and a variety of creative ways to maximize points, flying business vs. coach is like a man deciding to eat once at Cheesecake Factory rather than twice at McDonalds.

Business class is usually about 2/3 more than coach. If you can sign up for a bunch of credit cards, you can perhaps get 300,000 miles or points, which is 3 business-class trips to Europe or 5 coach trips. Admittedly it's not all THAT trivial. (For example, you can get 40K USAir points for signing up, but with limited transfer partners and them allowing only round-trip awards, it's not trivial to get your US account to 100K for a business class award.)

A purely personal perspective; as I get older I find myself achier and crankier and less willing to sit in coach on a long trip. I took my first-ever overseas trip last month and did fly business class both ways. I'm really happy I did, and unless I had a particular reason to be in Europe, I think I'd rather stay home and save my points for another trip than fly coach. If I had to pay the cash prices, where business class is 2-4 times as much as coach, it would be a different matter.

I might - might - feel differently if points were that hard to get, but by signing up for credit cards and using assorted tricks outlined on this website, my wife and I will earn about 800K points this year while flying almost not at all and spending only about $25K on credit cards. I certainly don't expect to do 800K every year, but it will be a nice stash to last us a few years.

I personally think the US air card at no minimum is a must:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...5k-benies.html

You need develop better reading skills ;-) No one was suggesting you should travel to Asia in economy class. On the other hand, a non-stop flight from NYC to Paris, for example, is only approximately 7 hrs in duration, thus more tolerable if you have to fly in coach (compared to future flights to Asia). You are also a bit over dramatic -- I've done 14+ hour non-stop flight in coach to Asia when necessary and once upon a time even spend 22+ hours en-route each way with connecting flights. If you would be traveling overseas with your parents or other elderly relatives, then I would definitely agree with business class seats for them. On that thought you should do something nice for your parents (as you live rent free), in whichever way that they might appreciate.

Wow, you took the thoughts right out of my head. I was actually going to mention this card by name.
Thanks, I will definitely add this to my app party.

I just wanted to point out that though you can apply for both of these cards, if you apply for more than one Chase card within 30 days they will auto-deny the second one. I have done this, and I was able to get approved for the second by calling the reconsideration line, but if there's no rush it's probably better to space out your Chase applications.

I just saw that FTG had a post yesterday that gives an overview of the various CC issuers and guidelines for dealing with each:
http://www.frugaltravelguy.com/2012/...lications.html

I already have 2 Chase credit cards-- the Chase Freedom and Chase Slate cards.
I don't want to get rid of my Chase Slate card, as it is the oldest card I have, dating back to 1998, which helps my credit history. However, what should I do with my Chase Freedom card once I get the Chase United Mileage Plus and Chase Sapphire cards? Should I cancel it? I've only had this card for about 1 year.

No, no, no, no, no. The Chase Freedom, despite its modest profile, is a great card to have in combination with the Chase Sapphire Preferred. Why? The CSP has two bonus categories, travel and dining, that earn 2 UR points per dollar spent. The Freedom, designated as a cash back card, actually earns points that can be transferred to a UR account IF you have a CSP or an Ink Bold or Ink Plus. Even better, the Freedom's quarterly bonus categories (for which you must remember to register--there's nothing automatic about these earning categories) will eventually get you 5 UR points per dollar instead of 1, up to a maximum of 6K bonus points per quarter.

Here's a thread on the upcoming bonus categories: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/credi...ategories.html.

In short, keep the card. And since you're in New York, open a Chase checking account if you don't already have one: http://thepointsguy.com/2012/04/maxi...nk-bold-combo/.

This combination is one way that folks with modest spending patterns can earn a lot more miles.

This is brilliant advice. I will do exactly as you suggest, and, believe me, I'm such a stubborn person that I rarely take advice without modifying it! In your case, the advice was perfect as is!!

for myself, and my wife, i just purchased some 220K united miles at $0.02+tax each. i used a credit card. cost was $4.4k+ so, got another 8k in miles on my chase card.

slawecki: it's good value if these purchased miles are used wisely. However I wouldn't bother trying to convince OP at this point, especially after seeing his statement in another post as follows:

I absolutely still stand by that statement. I'm not saying that they will be dishonest, but my b.s. meter is pretty sharp, and I can identify unfairness from a mile away.

Waste of effort. The programs set the rules and can change them at almost anytime, inherently building a certain level of unfairness into the game. Accepting THAT fact and then learning to deal with the changes when they come, including identifying new opportunities when old ones are taken away (and there generally are some), should be at the very heart of what people who chase miles and points do.

Good points!

Seriously, with the mind-set of the OP, and his inability to really see thru layers of things, all others posts trying to offer suggestions and ideas are futile effort because as your above statement - all loyalty programs have a built in unfairness (to the customers) in them - how in the world the person who "can smell" dishonesty miles away could live with that? And for that matter, since when life is fair?

I'm not saying I don't do some gnashing of teeth at times. But, I've learned the quicker I get from moaning about lost opportunities to thinking about new ones, the better off I am. And not just in the miles and points game. . .

The "ability to really see thru layers of things" is exactly what I'm good at. That was my whole point in the first place.
I understand that loyalty programs--and, in fact, ALL programs that are not designed by the consumer--are going to be tilted in the company's favor. I'm not naive. However, when I see blatant unfairness and downright dirty play is when I get pissed off. An example of this would be a bait-and-switch tactic, such as suddenly increasing by 50% the miles required to book a trip without warning. Lower your eyebrow, I've seen stuff like this happen in other industries (including in the government).
Now, I really don't think the airlines will play that dirty, it's bad business, and it will eventually catch up to them-- it always does. All I'm saying is that I am new to this game, and I will judge it objectively, based on its merit, that's all.

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You must have a better crystal ball than any of us - for no one could foretell how BA devaluated its miles to that degree last year (we knew the devaluation was coming but no details until it actually happened), or the Aeroplan's change of award chart in some cases the requirements were up 40%, or AA took away the international stopover without much of grace period to let you jam in redemptions before that, or UA has raised the chart to Australia from 90K to 120K to now 145K in less than 3 years. US just recently changed its award chart as well, DL, too.... The examples just go on and on and on....

You should stay away from Miles and Points gathering pursuits because each and every program has gone thru devaluation in recent years, some every year... by the time you finish choosing your programs with all your "see thru the layers" analysis and gather the enough miles for the initial charts you have based your efforts on, you would find yourself fall way short of your goal...

Despite so, we still all try our efforts to gather them... the "bad business" hasn't caught up with "them" nor stopped "us" in getting our free fights and hotel stays... Not sure which one is a more sound game plan. :D