FlyerTalk Forums - points.com guts program/site?

I realise that points.com was never a good deal but it served my purposes on a few occasions.

That said, I just visited the site to discover that it has been redesigned. The exchange calculator is gone. In fact the slightest reference to rates of exchange of any sort are gone. Customer service seemed to not want to talk about it, declined my request for a excel file or something of the sort with existing rates, offered to look up a single rate for me, then cut off the chat without so much as a good bye and before I could politely (for I was nothing but polite) assure them that I would not be renewing my status with them this fall if the functionality was not returned.

You can still confirm or not any transaction that you are considering so rates can be learned for any programs that you have already taken the trouble of registering. But who wants to register a program only to discover limits or rates that you would never ever accept. This is to say that part of it seems to be a ploy to force users to sign up everything they have rather than just signing up what is worth signing up.

Equally, I suspect it is a way to make conversion rates even more unfavourable under the cover of effective invisibility.

I cannot see how this will generate any new business. I think it will rather discourage new customers. So I suspect it is just an attempt to squeeze what remains to be taken out of existing customers. That is to say, it seems not a little suicidal or to be something of a death spiral.

Also, although this is not strictly speaking the company's fault, the number of swap in only partners is increasing. USAir is the most obvious example. Previously Delta was the most evident case.

Anyone know anything about this, have better or worse experiences, etc.?