interesting read.

http://cbs.marketwatch.com/news/stor...B50EEF8942D%7D

cheers..

Welcome to FT. That was a nice first post.

Good article. Welcome aboard!

Great first post!!! Thanks for the link, I'd never have seen it or read it without your help.....
Welcome to the GREATEST Frequent Flyer Community there is!!
Best wishes.

Welcome to FT. Great first post.

I agree. What a fabulous post. WELCOME

"If you're flying on an airline and you're buying a lot of tickets on that airline to get miles, we found it can be cheaper to fly on a low-fare carrier and not even worry about the miles," McGee said.

Not only that, but the discount carriers (Southwest, Airtran) have far less restrictions on their award tickets. Once passengers turn their backs on the Little 6's FF programs, they truly are done.

So many miles...so few seats.

The article is now in the archives, which unfortunately requires registration to access. I created a dummy account, if anyone needs to use it --

Member name: flyertalk
Password: flyertalk

Vladomir, Welcome and thanks for the post. I found it very imformative and makes me feel better of the 100K miles I just converted over to Hilton Honors program.

Nerd, Thanks for setting up the dummy account to view the article. I wouldn't have read it if I had to register.

Interesting, but a little inconsistent in analysis. First, he says FF seats are getting harder to get because there are fewer, then he publishes the federal Bureau of Transportation Statistics:

"And customers continue to get their free flights. Eight percent of domestic airline passengers flew for free in the second quarter this year, compared to 5.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2001, and 4.9 percent in the first quarter 2001".

That's almost twice as many FF seats this year as last year. Not a great reduction.

Bruce

First, seats may in fact be harder to get in the sense that one's first choice of dates/times are less often available than they used to be. In the past, there were possibly more seats made available for award redemption that were just not redeemed. Second, with the financial problems of certain major carriers, I for one am more willing to redeem mileage for a trip that I would not have considered worthy of a mileage redemption in the past (i.e. it was cheap enough that I would have just paid for a ticket (and earned miles instead)). Third, some of us are reduced to paying MORE than we would have in the past to get the seats we want (usually double the mileage for an unrestricted award). I don't know how much these factors mitigate the supposed inconsistency, but I do believe that on SOME airlines at least, the chances of me finding the trip I want available for the dates I want without using double the mileage for the award are MUCH worse than last year.



[This message has been edited by rtpflyer (edited 11-27-2002).]

Bruce [/b][/QUOTE] I don't know how much these factors mitigate the supposed inconsistency, but I do believe that on SOME airlines at least, the chances of me finding the trip I want available for the dates I want without using double the mileage for the award are MUCH worse than last year.

[This message has been edited by rtpflyer (edited 11-27-2002).][/B][/QUOTE]

Its OK to say Continental on this board.

Contrary to belief it actually isn't a curse word

Laguardiaguy

Appreciate your doing that as I probably wouldn't have read it if I had to register - thanks

The airline industry is a seasonal one. His comparing 2nd quarter statistics to 4th quarter and 1st quarter statistics is meaningless, totally apples-and-oranges. I'd be interested to know the year-on-year change.

This article exagerates a bit I think. The airlines are making a lot of money selling miles to credit card companies and others. Its essentially prepaid travel. Its not free if your mortgage or credit card companies pays for the miles in advance.