beaubo

So, you're not feeling like talking about the 70K RDMs per day??????!!!!!!!

steve32

Racked up nearly a million miles in 16 months at about a penny a mile, and leave in 28 days on business class awards around the Pacific Rim, taking my parental units with. (oneworld awards, which are better than the MilesAAver rate)

But I see you are with United, so I suppose that explains a lot right there.

Steve

Marathon Man

what, you couldnt score award seats in FC?

beaubo

Well, one man's cynicism/frustration (OP), is another man's benefit in having less competition for award seats (THIS poster!!).

The sentiments echoed by the OP are quite common these days from folks I'm acquained with. Instead of the perceived crapshoot of a capacity controlled, extra tax/fee laden airline ticket, these folks are opting for the guaranteed, no strings benefit like free gas or a 2% cash rebate or the Capitol One 'free' airline tickets (which is attractive for its simplicity, its surety, even though not such a good value!!).

So, as the mileage herd is being self-culled, there will be less warm bodies pursuing mileage award seats, hopefully making those still active in the mileage game, of having an incrementally better shot at award redemption.

Like others on this thread have observed, getting intl. F and J award seats is not only possible, but actually, quite probable, with the right mix of perseverence, date and routing flexibility, access to miles in multiple programs (think Starwood Amex), some top tier elite status (or maybe friends or family with said status), willingness to buy a cheap ticket to get to and/or from a gateway hub city, splitting up a group and meeting at final destination, always pumping CSrs to check partner carriers, knowing obscure routings (think SQ JFK-FRA or QF JFK-YVR or AF LAX-PPT or MH EWR-ARN or EK JFK-HAM)...and waa-laaa, U B upfront, baby!!!!!!!!

RustyC

Compared to 7 or 8 years ago there aren't many categories of FFers that are doing better now; it's mainly degrees to which they're doing worse. Airlines have made one cut after another to service at all levels, and the two-tier awards are essentially a stealth devaluation. The future viability is threatened mainly by all the non-flying miles that are sold causing the balances to get out of whack.

People who can and do fly internationally on paid business class are still very coveted and get targeted offers, but for most other patterns you pay more and get less both in terms of miles/targeted offers and in terms of the experience on the plane.

Marathon Man

a striking resemblence to many issues found in many other threads! I agree with you rusty. sad it is, eh?

pinniped

Agree with you on service - there's no question that the F/C products today aren't what they once were. Anybody who managed to save an int'l F winelist from 10 or 15 years ago can attest to that.

But on the FF side of things, I'm still getting the main components of the programs that I look for: 25k to Canada in Y, 80-120k to Europe in J or F, occasional 30-35k trip to Central America or the Caribbean. (Heck, next week we're redeeming 5 award seats to Bermuda for 20k a pop. ) Also occasionally a 25k domestic trip, but since I live in a strong WN city, the 25k domestics don't make much sense for me because I can usually find a good airfare - even when I fly AA/UA.

In some ways, it's actually easier - because I, uhhhh, rack up a lot of points/miles from credit cards. And other partner sources, promotions, etc...

To date, the only times I've had to redeem the "rulebuster" award levels have been on a couple of last-minute domestic trips where the choice was a 50k award or a $1000 ticket. But I haven't done one of those in about 5 years - even last-minute tickets out of MCI on any airline tend to cap out at the WN full fare. (No surprise there...)

Having access to miles across both *A and OW definitely helps.

At some point in the next 2-3 years, we'll probably splurge and throw a lot of miles at some J seats to Asia. I know that trip will take some planning, but with flexibility I expect we'll get it one way or another.

steve32

Including my parents award tickets I was already burning nearly half a million miles from my account, just 8 months after I started this "game"! I didn't have more at the time, and I'm fine with International Business Class as I can't be tossing back a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue every flight, and I'm used to domestic coach (though now in exit rows) so my perspective is low enough that I should be very happy as is.

The good news is 8 months after that and my account is back up to be able to do it again already.

Steve

Totoro

I can't speak about other airlines, but Continental does hold back a few reward seats for Elites. I've seen seats available when logged into my account that are not available to general members. I would not be surprised if other legacy airlines did the same. Please be aware of facts before making unfounded allegations.

wanaflyforless

This July I redeemed a ticket to YVR 1 day before I wanted to go. As a UA 1K, I had several options both ways on my choice dates. As a general member, there was nothing either way on my dates.

As a CO PLT, I have access to almost as many award seats as AA gives to everyone. As a CO general member, forget about high season travel on CO metal for the lower level to just about anywhere.

As an AA EXP, 9/10 of the seats available to me are also avaiallbe to everyone else. But because AA availability is generally superior, I have a very good shot at redemption, including well planned peak travel.

As a NW PLT, award avail is very good. Not so good for generarl member.

The point is that the ailrines do make a significant number of seats only available to their elites.

monitor

And not to the "armchair travelers who rarely fly [and] often spend...."

Does the OP actually believe that that crowd really "take[s] every free seat to everywhere you ever might want to go?"

pinniped

United has two coach award fare buckets: N available to everyone, and E available to only 1K members. (At least on United metal - other *A carriers may differ and I'm not sure if *A Golds get extra seats everywhere. I'm pretty sure they don't.)

When flights are wide open, the N and E values are typically the same. (e.g., N6 E6). When flights are very full, I see a lot of N0 E1. That's a pretty powerful 1K perk. The flight may be selling only revenue Q or U and up, yet there will still be an E1 sitting there. (Well, not always, but I do see it a lot when I'm looking at all of the fare codes...)

sosafan

Off topic, perhaps, but the OP refers extensively to Halifax. Halifax is high on my list of places that I want to visit, and we tried to get two FF tickets to Halifax over labor day and failed.

For comparison, (and for my family of 4) other failures in the last year: 2 ORD-Newfoundland, one ORD-Madrid, one ORD-Rome, one BOS-Latvia.

Successes were 2 ORD-AThens and 1 BOS-AThens, 1 ORD-Oslo; 2 ORD-DEN, 1 ORD-Jamaica, 1 ORD-ROC, 1 ORD-OAK and 2 ORD-New Zealand.

FWIW none of my miles (and only a very small fraction of family mils) come from credit cards. I know this doesn't prove anything, but at least you've increased my hopes of finding FF tickets next time I want to try to go to Halifax.

RustyC

I guess I have to give some credit to airlines for quietly adding Canada and Alaska to the 48 US awards. Alaska in September is a real sleeper of a destination because lots of rooms have been added in ANC and costs in ANC and FAI are much more like the lower 48 than they used to be.

bhmlurker

The real evil aren't non-freq fliers that rack up a points on credit cards. It's many people like me and others here at FT who only fly LUT fares, rack up miles, and snag saver award a year in advance, before you or the million+ banked mile rich person even thought of taking a vacation. People like me can do as much damage to seat inventory as one of OP's supposedly-rich antagonists, with only half the miles.

*cackles* Join me, and I will complete your training. With our combined strength, we can score endless numbers of saver tickets. If you only knew the power of the dAArkside! Search your feeling eyechip, you know it to be true.