I suppose Randy has already thought of this, but it would be nice to be able to spend, say, 10k miles in place of the annual fee. Of course, Randy would have to be sure that the airline would pay him the $ for the miles. I suppose that the coverage could commence when the $ arrive. But maybe the number of potential users of this option is too small to make it worthwhile.

Actually you could do this. In the orginal MilePoint.com program before the current magazines and cruises offers we were part of many different merchants with whom you could redeem your miles for a discount membership into PrivilegeFlyer for the AwardGuard benefit. That changed when they 'remade' that business. The option is no loger available, sorry.

Now for your suggestion. Chances are airlines would only be willing to pay two tenth of a penny towards redemption of miles to product. That means that your 10K would only net me around $20. I think our hard costs exceed $110 in the current program so that may be a real problem. I'm not sure you'd be willing to 'spend' 60,000 miles toward a membership. Now you know more of the math of why there aren't more merchandise offers from frequent flyer programs.

Yeah, like: "get this nifty electric toothbrush for only 53,000 American Express Membership Miles".

Those offers always make me laugh, but I bet they get a lot of folks redeeming them all the same.

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~ Glen ~

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