Yes, I think lots of people fly to Asia in coach. When I fly to Asia the coach seats are quite full. In a sense the credit card bonuses democratized the ability to fly overseas, though now cash fares are often so good there's no need to use miles.

Haha yes I know people do fly coach to Asia. I was more asking about FTers.

Yes, there are FTers, but I don't know if they'll come to this thread.

If you read all the threads in airline forums for people discussing and asking for help with booking saver tickets, there you'll find that some people are only looking for coach tickets TATL/TPAC. If all you look is threads about people churning cards to no end, maybe you don't see the same thing.

Keep in mind that not all FTers know how to get an "infinite" number of miles/points. For example, some want to travel with a family of 5, and just can get enough for coach for 5 TATL roundtrips, and then are still plagued with the trouble of getting 5 coach saver awards on the very same flights.

Also, it depends how people deal with sleep, and their size. Short people who sleep easily even if sitting upright may have a lot fewer issues with flying economy than taller people who have trouble sleeping upright.

I only fly coach, and I'm rather extreme about it. Business and first have no value for me, so if I get an upgrade, I feel someone else should really get it because they seem to value it and I don't for sure. I try to turn them down, and I mostly succeed. I started a thread "the down side of upgrades" several years ago, and people thought I was joking, but I wasn't.
And yes, I'm flying to Asia next month.

Can you provide a link to that thread? I'm dying to read the comments.

I have done TPAC 7 times, all in economy. The only time I minded it was when I played myself on a reroute for more miles. Aisle seat on NH became a middle seat on UA NRT-EWR. I can't sleep well sitting and don't see any value in going on an airborne bender so economy works for me.

I have a horde of about 500k miles over all programs, the program enhancements are happening faster than I can use them so am using domestically where I can get two cents or better.

Different strokes for different folks. My in-laws always fly economy because they're relatively short and prefer to save cash (and to be fair domestic F is not all that special). My parents flew economy until they retired (also to save cash) but now go business class TATL because they get it. When I was young and poor I rarely redeemed for F because it was tough for me to earn miles and my body was able to recover quickly from a redeye. Now I earn plenty of miles from business travel, I have difficulty sleeping on planes, and it takes me a week to recover from jetlag, So I'm happy to do C x 4 when my family goes TATL or TPAC - which admittedly isn't every year. Miles are always depreciating (read: award prices are always increasing) so it makes sense to burn them for C rather then using for a cramped economy seat and hoarding them. Particularly if OP is right.

I have done TPAC in Y. ORD-PVG. It was a situation where no F/J awards were available, regular (lowest mileage) Y awards were available, and we were flying an odd sequence of segments that meant buying cheap Y (or discounted J) tickets couldn't happen. And we were booking far enough in advance that I could get two infinite-legroom exit row seats. It wasn't awful, but it wasn't great either. It was a necessary evil to get to China without significantly changing dates or searching for some sort of very odd routing.

I think this response is telling about the current state of the entire FF game: I was just talking about using miles, and pretty much the whole thread assumes I'm talking about earning them from credit cards. You are absolutely right - take away the F/J seats, and 2% cashback wins every time.

And if you happen to earn a trickle of miles by actually flying, use those on domestic segments that manage to fall into a sweet spot in value where you get a couple cents per mile. If you can...

LOL
these games will never stop now that they have found a nice way to print money legitimately. If the neighbour does it, I have to do it too or I lose!

The beginning of the end of travel rewards?

what you mention in your post is travel rewards through churning, not earning travel rewards legitimately. a lot of people might say that CC spend is not legitimate way to earn miles but no bank has said that this person spends way too much on their credit card.

although it is true that travelling on points is tougher than it once was, it's not the end and there's no end in sight. in fact, everyone is doing it which is exactly why it's so tough now.

Well, with airlines shifting to a revenue model, and their constant devaluations, good luck earning F awards through "legitimate" methods.

A big problem that some have mentioned but I don't think gets emphasized enough is that both airlines and banks have gotten less competitive and more oligopolistic at the top level during this time when you get the explosion of blogs and the online tools have gotten better. So you have not only a lot more wannabes in the game, but a much worse playing field.

With the banks you get exclusive arrangements with mileage-earning cards, so only the top behemoths are in at that level. Others get to do points-based, which can have some advantages but aren't so churn-able. With banks in general you have something like the top 6 controlling 70% of assets, or some lopsided number like that.

With airlines you've got the US3 that just doesn't care as much about competing anymore and treats their FFers like the European monopoly flag carriers long treated theirs. The main competition in airlines, such as it is, is with ULCCs, and some of those are like Spirit in that they have a pretty uninspired FF program and hate the idea of elite perks that could decrease the charge-for-everything fee revenue. The ULCCs can be spoilers with "capacity discipline" (F9's ATL-SLC nonstop a perfect example...did a RT on that last year at $54 at a particularly low time). OTOH, they generally don't have enough planes or frequency yet, And DL has not been matching F9 or NK like it used to match WN.