Well, let me ask you a question. It used to be 20K miles for a ticket. Now it's 25K. So they ALL changed their requirements.

Looks like you'll have slim pickings for people who keep things they way they were way back when.

Maybe Southwest -- I don't think they'd changed their rewards system yet.

Let's try this one:

If a 5000 mile trip* used to cost $1000, and you needed 20K miles for a free award, then you had to take 4 trips and spend $4000 for an award.

If that same trip is now regularly $750, and the award is 25K miles, now you have to take 5 trips, but only have to spend $3750 for an award.

Where's the inflation? (or devaluation?)

Analogy for those living in the South: If you used to get 3 pancakes for a dollar at Waffle House...

* your mileage may vary

You are assuming in your example that tickets are cheaper today than they were last year. Does a ticket that used to cost $1000 really only cost $750 now? I'm not so sure that, on average, tickets are cheaper today than they used to be. For example, I've been watching the price of HNL-West Coast and HNL-Asia fares for over ten years now. On average, I would say that the ticket prices have gradually been going up.

If you fly the same amount this year as you did last year, and spend about the same amount of money for those tickets (possibly more due to true inflation), but are now reaping fewer rewards for that same amount of flying, then the miles have been devalued.

You are incorrect, sir. Airfares have gone DOWN since deregulation and the invention of frequent flier programs. There was something on the Savvy Traveler about that and I believe the Wall Street Journal covered that as well.

aa allowed and still allows old miles with a seperate award schedule. why then and not in May?

No Southwest hasn't, plus their Companion Pass still gets you two-for-one awards.

I agree that fares have gone down since deregulation and the invention of FF programs in the early 80s. But I was referring to fares of the last few to several years, since that is the timeframe that I think would be applicable to the latest devaluation of miles.

I imagine that most of the deflation in fares occurred in the years following deregulation, ie the eighties. From the 90s to today, there has been a small upward trend in the fares that I have been watching.

I don't think you can blame the recent devaluation of miles on the overall trend of fares reaching all the way back to deregulation, way way before even the 20K to 25K domestic award hike.

I really don't care about WHY the airlines are hiking their reward requirements. I only care about the result and what that means to me.

The result is that I have to use more miles in the future to go somewhere. I have two choices. Accept the program changes, or leave the program. Seeing how I will still continue to get something for nothing, I will accept the changes.

I don't plan on enriching Joe Sleazeball from the law firm of Dewey, Cheatum, and Howe by filing a lawsuit that I won't win.

I agree with you there. I believe the airlines can make and change the rules as they see fit, and it's up to the consumer to decide if they want to play the game or not. All this talk of litigation is, for the most part, rubbish.

Well, as usual, I come in to an interesting discussion late, but if anyone is still awake out there, I have this thought:

Rewards are something promised in the future. But for how long must a contract for these rewards at a given price be honoured - 90 days, 90 weeks, 90 months? And when does the clock start ticking - when the first mileage allowance is posted to my FF account, the fifth mileage allowance (if for a domestic flight); the nth (for a North American/Caribbean flight); or the (n + x)th (for an international flight)? What if the passenger wants a business class ticket; then the timing would change again, if timed from the time of final mileage accumulation. There is so much variation in the 'terms' that I'm not sure it would be possible to state that we are promised delivery on explicit contractual terms for some indefinite time. Rather it seems we are promised contractual terms that vary depending on our own needs or wants, and which might only be promised, at a given price, for some period of time that is dependent on indefinite factors not always under the airlines' control.

Good Lord, I think I've just written myself into a corner. Did I make any sense at all - or should I just spread newspaper and make a dash for the door? : - )

[This message has been edited by simpleflyer (edited 01-14-2003).]

And that link is...?