Well, it seems that the Golden Age of frequent-flier rewards is over, according to The
New York Times, which writes about the sad
devaluation of airline miles. Airline miles, it seems, are like pesos: you can have, like 70,000 of them, and each day
they get you less and less. According to the piece, airline customers say using their miles is becoming more and more
difficult.
Perhaps that’s no surprise, given the state of the industry and the unfathomable number of miles held out there. To
wit: U.S. airline passengers have currently hoarded about nine trillion frequent-flier miles, up 50% from five years
ago. That, by the way, is enough for 36 million free tickets based on the typical standard of 25,000 miles for a free
domestic ticket. But as recently as 1994, the typical minimum threshold for a free ticket was 20,000.
Lesson: use those miles now before they’re worth less than a foil bag of peanuts.