Insightful. And those folks are losing miles every year across all of the major airline's ff programs, which expire after 18 months of non-use. I should know; before FT wisened me up, I lost 12,000 miles to US for not paying attention to their sneaky expiration date.

I would rather pay money for sbm12's postings than subscribe to get the article we are discussing.

Everybody has an opinion here. This is mine: One US major has to go, but I don't expect it to happen soon. It need not be an abrupt shutdown; a major might simply decide to stop operating in an orderly way and sell off everything of value (including the ff program) in a managed Chapter 11, thus shortchanging only the owners of the debt and the labor agreements. Something like GM's situation, but without a government bailout and any pretense of still operating.

I'm talking about "industrial policy": The government would say that there are too many players for a profitably healthy domestic airline industry. This is why "too big to fail" will not help. I would hope nobody in government is crazy enough to entertain the idea of owning or operating an airline.

I took a g/f on a trip to Europe on DL with my former Pan Am miles that DL credited. In fact, I started flying DL pretty regularly for a few years thereafter because of this.

Will this thread live as long as AA and/or UA's mileage program?

I sincerely hope not ...

Well, we're kind of moving that way right now. DL/NW merging and UA/CO getting cozier. Within three or four years we could be at four legacies - assuming US doesn't get absorbed into one of the others.

I believe this statement is too strong, and would like to disagree with its implication. It is of course true that miles do not accrue interest. But their underlying value is the cost of a flight (or benefit) and that increases in value with inflation. I suspect that in the near future, airline prices will increase faster than inflation. (My prediction could be wrong, but you have to admit that it is a possibility.) In such a world, the value of the miles has increased with the price of the ticket that you don't have to buy.

A counter argument is that redemption levels go up. A counter-counter argument is that the cost of a saver-type domestic award on many airlines is the same as it has always been.

Do you really believe that the costs of flights have increased concurrent with the inflation rate over the last 10 years? I think if you actually look at the data you'll be sorely disappointed.

Could that happen in the future? Absolutely. But I'm not betting on it in the immediate future.

And if you look at things like premium cabin long-haul flights where most FFers don't pay for them out of their own pocket anyways, the actual dollar value of the ticket is somewhat irrelevant. At $4,000 or $8,000 I'm not buying the Biz seat NYC-NRT. But I'd happily redeem my miles for it.

No

Since it hasn't, I am quite pleased. :) I suspect that the recent low fares may possibly have something to do with the absence of large airline profits. ;)
But in the long run most things average out, and that is part of the basis for my expectation that future fares will increase. So I'm guessing that I am keeping a larger fraction of my miles than many flyertalkers. But not all of them.

The other piece is that the market continues to be flooded with more and more cheap miles, effectively making almost all of our awards cheaper than they used to be.

Take the simple domestic coach award (not that FT'ers redeem those too much...). Long ago, you probably needed to fly a lot to earn the 25k. Sure, there were nice promos and elite bonuses back in the 80's and 90's, but now you can pick up an easy 25k (or more) on almost any airline in as long as it takes to fill out a credit card application.

You might have to buy your miles for $59 or whatever - or they might be free. The offers continue to get more lucrative: a few years ago annual fee waivers were rare or nonexistent.

I also agree that the value in miles/points can rise. Since I track my hotel redemptions more closely for "hard" value than flights, that's where I see it the most. Hotels go through periodic "category creep" which tends to follow a higher-demand travel year. Sweet spots for hotel point value tend to be in that first high-demand year after a period of cool demand. In 2009, hotel rates are very cheap, making paid rooms more attractive. In 2010, I suspect that the points will be worth more: as the global economy recovers, room rates will edge up, but hotels won't be doing a wave of category creep based on their 2009 revenues.

But there are people who accrue more miles than they can spend resulting in a 7 digit balance.

Sure, but those people aren't "saving" them; they simply cannot spend them quickly enough. If folks are purposefully hoarding miles in such quantities they are putting themselves in a disadvantageous position.

You're not going to lose any NW miles so why would you feel it necessary to burn 45k NW miles now? You won't lose them when WorldPerks gets folded into Delta SkyMiles. They transfer into SkyMiles on a one to one basis; if you don't have a SkyMiles account they will create one for you when the time comes. This fear that folks have about losing miles is largely unfounded.

How do NW and DL miles relate to each other in value? That is, are the award charts already fairly aligned? Is the access to OW partner award inventory equal? Booking fees and other oddball rules/fees equal?

Without knowing that it's hard to say whether burning NW miles now is advantageous. They may or may not be a good value at 1:1 conversion to DL.

Take United for example. I would value 1 US mile higher than 1 UA mile for two reasons: (i) several very attractive awards require a lot fewer miles on US than on UA and (ii) US does not Starnet block like UA does - a major factor that makes it difficult for UA fliers to book the best award seats available in the system, even when the operating carrier has made them available.

(A minor downside is that US would hit me with some junk fees that I don't have to pay UA as long as I'm at the 1K tier.)

Anyway, I don't know the situation with NW but without more information it's hard to say if the 1:1 conversion is a good deal.

When my TW miles converted to AA 1:1 I thought it was a bit of a mixed bag. I actually used the TW 15k award on very short, expensive nonstop flights because it was often available at the last minute with no booking fees. DFW-STL, for example. That flight would have a $600 R/T walkup fare, but I could still call TW the morning of departure and get it with 15k. So I miss that, but I also like the OW alliance and AA's route map in general...

One SkyPile is worth a lot less than a WP mile. A one to one exchange rate is a ripoff to NW WP members. SM is a much crappier program. Take TATL flights for instance. Before the DL pirates took over NW, it took 50K miles for a coach ticket. DL upped that to 60K, PLUS if you originate in Europe, they also tack on a ripoff foreign origin fee of over $200 that NW has been honest enough not to charge. Trading WP for SM one for one is about like trading pounds for dollars one for one.

It makes me puke to hear the recording when you call NW and they tell you ''rest assured, your miles are safe.'' Horsehockey! Miles are never safe if JeffBob in anywhere in the vacinity!

AA miles would definitely be worth more than most airlines. I thought about going there when the DL takeover made leaving NW necessary. The problem with AA, however, since I do a lot of TATL flying, is that TATL involves two bigs problems, Heathrow, the worst gateway airport in Europe, and BA, which often doesn't award miles on AA. Those are the two big downsides to AA. There are lot of positives like much better award avaibility and the one way tickets at half the miles.