that may be misleading

for instance i transferred 15k AA miles into 30k HHonors points
is that a mileage transaction?

were the AABOS andand other certificate award programs which used the frequent flyer inventory as their source counted?

just the cynic in me taking over, temporarily,

ok i'm back to my normal "believe everything i read from marketing types" self

Airline marketing-speak is often misleading -- especially when it comes to frequent flyer programs.

AA miles transferred into HHonors points seem to fall within the "Product Redemptions" category (or the "Other airline awards, other misc.), but who knows.

Here's another way of thinking about this. As Randy has pointed out, way way back there were no saver awards with capacity controls, only standard awards. The airlines then figured that saver awards would be a good way to unload seats they didn't expect to sell otherwise and give people a deal.

Now, everyone thinks of saver awards as the basic award level for free tickets, which they really are not, any more than the lowest published fare on any given route is the basic fare to most places most of the time or the once a month 50% off sale at your local department store is the basic cost of most goods.

I personally have changed my way of thinking, especially when I am planning for award tickets on popular routes such as Hawaii or Europe. I plan for needing the standard award level. If the saver award is available, I think of it as a special sale and that I got a bargain, just like buying something on sale in a store.

I know most people don't think this way anymore, but I do think it is more realistic, it saves a lot of personal aggravation, and it minimizes unfulfilled expectations, which are the biggest source of anyone's annoyance and frustration with these programs.

but were the "old" standard rewards at the same mileage levels as todays "saver" awards?

i dont remenber

but i do remember when the awards came with a rental car discount and maybe even a hotel discount
but no more

i redeemed 180k on continental for 2 round trips in coach to australia from chicago in 88, i dont believe there was saver or standard awards then, just standard or first class (but i may be wrong)

But the minute the airline runs a promotion - for example, for a credit card - where they claim that 20k is "almost enough for a free ticket", they are conditioning the public to think that the 25,000 level is the basic award level. The even use terms like "RuleBuster" to refer to higher levels. The phrasing is such that 25k is what you should be able to get for a normal trip, and 50k is what you'd use if you want to fly to Miami for New Year's or to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. They set these expectations with their marketing. If the airlines said "Sign up for our credit card and earn 20,000 bonus miles, 40% of a FREE TICKET!!", then I'd agree with the above point.

They condition us to expect that, too. I love the Northwest ads that are frequently run in my local fishwrap (Kansas City Star). They include a picture of a 747 and copy such as "$59 each way!" with a bunch of fine print about taxes, roundtrip purchase, etc. We know from experience that there are zero $59 seats anywhere, anytime, on any aircraft type out of Kansas City on Northwest. Yet the airline works very hard to convince us that there are.

Maybe this is way off topic, but I haven't bought anything at a department store in many years that wasn't marked at least 50% off. Usually it's more like 66%. It's the game they play... The standard going price for a pair of Ralph Lauren khakis - the ubiquitous "business casual" attire - is about $25. Maybe $30. But they are always sold as $59.50 with 50% off. I guess it's the mentality that people expect everything to always be on sale... Even high-end gear - $2000 suits and the like - are always priced as 50% off.

Not sure if this has anything to do with airlines. I guess some of the consumer behavior concepts are similar...

And as I recall (at least with AA), those certificates were actually valuable. That is, you could find an attractive hotel/car rate and then apply the 25% off (or whatever it was) certificate. I used a few of them back when they came with the old-fashioned paper ticket booklets.

For UA they were for 50% off. Those were definitely worth it.

JerryFF, pardon me, but before AA's milesaaver implementation in spring, 2004, there were PLENTY of 25K "planaahead" awards. I could, and did, and often, make use of 25K domestic awards for years. My last "great" use of planaaheads was to get a group of 13 people on the same flight using 25K awards booked only 5 mo prior to a major ski resort, only fall, 2003.

Then along comes spring, 2004 and the secretive implementation of milesaaver and AA just threw the wraps on this program. Clearly they (AA) were and are modeling after Continental's Nonepass program, and applying hidden capacity controls and yield management schemes to aadvantage like never before.

Respectfully, you are 100% wrong in your assertion that standard awards should be the expectation - airlines ALL, to this day, make it appear that 25K should be the norm - not 45-50K. Capital One makes great fun of this very failed/false expectation by the legacy airlines.

You have been conditioned, my friend, and are playing right into the legacy airlines' scheme. You are playing right into their trap of dumbing down of expectations. me - I cold-turkey abandoned my citibank/aadvantage card and all efforts to accumulate AA miles by late spring, 2004, due to absolute disgust w/ AA's milesaaver and all the inherent semi-fraud it represents. So far AA (and indirectly Citibank) has lost a massive amount of my business. I eagerly await the day when more consumers wake up and smell the coffee.

CO also does an annual blurb in the newsletter showing the total number of awards redeemed, usually compared to the past year if they can show an increase. What does that tell you? Not much, which is how they like it. Someone using an EasyPass because they couldn't get a standard award, for example, would inflate the miles redeemed and still count as 1 for awards redeemed.

They're selectively presenting facts to try to lead you to conclude that things are all right when omitted stats could show a quite different picture. Would be interesting, for example, to see a line graph on the percent of redeemed miles vs. unredeemed miles outstanding by year. Or one that tracks both total seats and percent of total seats allocated to awards. That's the kind of stuff they keep under wraps and will only release if forced.

Anecdotally, I think there's a widespread belief that lowest-tier awards are getting very scarce to any place popular, "rule-buster" awards are about where standard awards were a few years ago in terms of availability, meaning as much as a 50% stealth devaluation in mileage value; that award seats available are flat or actually declining as legacy carriers let loads go up without adding capacity; and that the unredeemed/redeemed situation just grows ever wider. My own sense on that last one is that we'll get a real day of reckoning when baby boomers start to retire, but that's assuming hopefully that we don't lose major carriers before then. All signs point to "Burn!"

Of course, if the government did get involved the airlines would push for a stat they could "game," such as systemwide award seat availability. That way a half-empty plane to Detroit in January could be switched to a high % of award seats to make the overall stat come out the way the airline wants it to.

Sounds like you've soured on AAawards. (Me too, BTW) Did your passion for CitibAAnk diminish as well? I cancelled my CitiBAAnk card about a year ago.