Back in April I wrote about my thoughts on award space throttling, I’d been looking for some flights and simply couldn’t find anything viable. It would be a great way to discretely layer a further devaluation into an award chart without making a fanfare… and I see more and more of it.
Generally speaking, I’m not a follower of other blogs, but I do like to use twitter to stay in touch with humanity, so occasionally see a retweet from someone I don’t regularly read, or a tweet from someone who I follow. Am I the only one noticing a disturbance in the force?
I just did a quick search to bring up example posts, but the screenshot works pretty well:
Are we being sold a dead horse?
Why the excitement about award space being ‘wide open’? When we hear about the points game there is never a mention of ‘not being able to find a flight’ it’s always:
50,000 points is worth $53,503 because that is what I would normally pay in cash money if I wasn’t playing World of Warcraft
There’s no:
Great offer, if you can ever find saver award space
So I’m worried… is it drying up because of all you leaches stealing my space?! And where do we go from here?
Do we have an abundant mind?
Today SCOTUS announced that Gay Marriage was constitutional. And as such gays would be afforded the same rights as the rest of the screwed up society that we call America. A truly great event. One of the worst things that you can do on days like this is to read the comments of the press. You get to see some of the most insane people coming up with the most ridiculous arguments (other than God saying it wasn’t cool of course, which makes perfect sense…)
One of the more intelligent arguments I saw was that Social Security would end (die!) sooner because the gay folk would have the same rights and could now draw equally from it. I have to say it is one of the more well thought out arguments that I have seen, but creates an interesting perspective on abundance. When is it OK to share, and when is it not?
How is this related?
The natural evolution of the points game is that ‘boring’ awards become flooded and ‘optimized’ so nobody can get them anymore… that might encourage bloggers to share the more exotic variations of an award, and fill a needs gap. Should we champion this, and allow that abundance to rejoice, or should we frown upon such sharing, as it will kill off the gig that much sooner?
When is it OK to share, and when is it not? Are people who share killing it sooner for the haves? And should we perhaps wonder if they are doing it to really help the ‘have nots’, or for some other reason….
Interesting thoughts. We would like to upgrade to Lufthansa first class in September, from business, using United miles. Wonder if any will be any seats?
Share your business and first class award seat availability as much as you want. Those seats are only worth half or 1/3 as many trips as coach seats.
LOL. The whole Abundance POV means that using miles for the front of the plane just means that you are making room for more miles in your account. I’d rather spend down to 50K, and enjoy the flights to and from where I’m going. IOW: I’m on vacation from the moment I walk through security (fast tracked, not in the endless line for the coach passengers).
If you know that you can earn 20K miles/month without breaking a sweat, and can, even in the worst case scenario, bump up another 50K or more in each account every couple of years, why be penurious with your points? Why not enjoy the trip itself?
That said, if you like riding in coach, or feel more virtuous doing so, go for it.
Good stuff.
About award space: We seem to go bananas when award space is “wide open”. First, I’d say it’s *not* actually wide open as I think a reasonable person would define it. There are 30 seats on those EWR-SFO/LAX flights and when I look 10 months out, none of them sold. Yet out of 15 flights on a given day only one of them has saver level space for 4 people? And the flight times are rough.
This, to me, isn’t “wide open” at all.
So to your point: No, this game isn’t a dead horse. And yes, a lack of saver level space is a quiet but real devaluation.
A perpetual lack of saver level space makes it harder to get value out of our miles. Not just because it forces you to use more miles but because it eliminates the ability to use partner airline miles. And that’s where some of the best values are.
All in all: This game isn’t about free travel. It’s deeply discounted travel with a lottery element.
If you know that going in, that’s fine. But suggesting that 30K Singapore miles can reliably be used for lie flats across the country/to Hawaii – how signup bonuses are often encouraged – is misleading.
Reasonable people realize this and choose not to play the game. And that’s good because there *is* a lack of abundance here. As for me – the current state of the game is lucrative enough to make it worth playing.
I have been using miles for flights for a very long time, though, and, in my memory, it’s always been that way. Few saver award seats, and they go quickly. I remember paying 35K for my daughter to join me in Boston, on a not particularly important weekend, back in 2002. But I had the miles, earned a lot of them as a Gold NWA member, and wanted her to see Boston. I was already there, on the company dime.
The biggest difference today VS 2002 is that there are more award levels, and the higher ones cost more miles.
What percentage of these flights are actually being bought up by point churners? It’s easy to overestimate the size of the community when you’re constantly on forums. Is it really the hacking that’s hurting award space of just stingy airlines ever focused on the bottom line?
I’m not really accusing churners (though logically they impact space) I’m actually saying it is more on the airline side here, and hence referencing the ‘silent’ devaluation.
I feel your posts have been negative over the last 6 months. Crying wolf, and critical of your readers’ passions. There is no basis, clues, or facts to support this post. Just more a rant than anything else.
I tried searching for an award ticket, couldn’t find space for 5 months straight. Then I see that award space being ‘wide open’ is newsworthy, and I made a comment on it.
I really think things have changed a lot in the few years that I’ve been playing the game.