Thanks SlickRick & Watchful !...

dhuey, yes, I will try to find a way to either let one get the book WITH miles, or offer it when you buy one (but of course, someone savvy like us will just take all the mile certs out of the unsold books and cash them in (and hey, I guess I would let them! Gee, I wish I were ungodly rich like Branson!)

This I have to agree with--even the BBQ part!
And I like the majors still because I am able to better manage the 3 year activity rule, and do not fly domestic enough for SouthWest.

We also fly Internationally a lot and they do not.

:)MM

More pyramids, please
 

For 140k Delta miles and 30k United miles, I just got a round trip from SFO to Chaing Mai. First class on Singapore, Business class on Thai.

What did these miles cost me? It depends on the assumptions (e.g., opportunity cost of not using 1% rebate credit card), but it's about 1.25 cents per.

So, for $2,125 I'll be traveling in about the most comfort one can on airlines. Miles, and only miles, made this possible for me. Even if I had found a great deal on discounted premium cabin tickets, this itinerary would have run well over $5k -- too pricey for me.

I like this scam.

WN definitely has a short-haul advantage. Regardless of whose money you spend, as WN is usually about the same, if not more, than other carriers, there's differences in value.

Traditional carrier example with status: a $200 transcon with a single coastal connection = 6,000 base miles + 125% platinum bonus + online booking bonus = 14,500 miles earned per ticket. Do that 9 or 10 times, and fly to Australia in First Class for less than what some people will be paying for their coach seat.

Agree 100% with NSX. For several years, one could fly 4 RTs from the SF bay area to the LA area for approx. $75 per trip. Since the free tickets were worth $300, I was essentially flying to LA for free! Not to mention the occasional targetted bonus ticket promos (i.e. fly 2 trips, get a free ticket) and partner promos. Not quite as lucrative today (5+ trips now required) but still a pretty good deal compared with legacy carriers.

Of course, value is in the eye of the beholder. Some people (like me) plan to use their legacy miles for long haul business class seats on international flights. But the most common award issued by legacy carriers is the standard lower-48 ticket. And the WN free ticket can be used to fly to high-fare cities like TUS, LAS and MSY. Try using your legacy carrier miles to get a free ticket to LAS on a popular weekend with little advance notice. Good luck.

Rapid Rewards doesn't work for everyone, particularly those who can't fly 5 WN trips in a year. However, I think everyone who flys domestically needs to have a FF card from an LCC carrier in addition to whatever legacy programs they have, as LCC fares are often not matched.

It would be fair to say that Southwest has one of the few frequent flyer programs (JetBlue, also). The other programs are hybrids of flying miles and modern day trading stamps. Some programs explicitly tout how you can earn awards without ever leaving the ground. Southwest has some partners, but it's mostly about flying them 5+ times per year.

Yes, the Southwest awards aren't that valuable, but one must keep in mind that it didn't cost too much for the tickets that earned the award.

^ ^

I never have problems redeeming SPN-CO-MNL, either, and SPN-NW-NGO is also usually open.

I don't see frequent flyer programs as a scam or pyramid scheme.

Nearly all airlines impose capacity controls on award redemptions, with some exceptions for certain rulebusters (costing double in many cases).

For the past 24 years, most major airlines consistently have filled only about 2/3 to 3/4 of their seats with revenue passengers. So these seats would fly empty if not for award redemptions.

DL estimates that the marginal COST of fulfulling a domestic award ticket is about $25. If airlines can sell those 25k miles for $0.015 each to a credit card company (pocketing a whopping $375), more power to them.

WN's RR program has its advantages, primarily its lack of capacity controls (except for blackout dates). The only issue facing WN is that has allowed RR tix to be sold and the lack of capacity controls allows people to use RR tix in place of a potential $299 OW full fare (when snagging that last seat).

The marginal COST to WN is no doubt less than the $25 estimated by DL, but it is entirely possible that the RR ticket costs WN far more lost revenue than at DL or other legacy airline issuing capacity controlled miles.