I’d like to thank Mr Credit Card for letting me write a guest post here. Though I write the blog, The Cranky Flier, I’m going to do my best to avoid getting too cranky. That might be tough since our topic tonight is airline miles. Just those two words alone are enough to cause blood pressure to spike.

I’m one of those people that actually considers myself to be miles agnostic when it comes to airlines. Earning frequent flier miles is usually one of the last things I consider when I look to book a plane ticket. Really, the only time I even think about it is if I’m really close to a mileage threshold and I want to push myself over the edge for an award. As you can imagine, that doesn’t happen very often.

Even that behavior has diminished as airlines continue to move the goal posts in the middle of the game. For example, I was planning to build up enough points in United’s program for my honeymoon. I got their credit card to try and get up to the amount I needed when my grand plan fell apart. As I was nearing 90,000 miles, we made the final decision to go to one of the few places on Earth where Star Alliance miles won’t take you, Tahiti (at least not from the US).

Now I had all these miles in my account with no plan. I decided I would cross the 90,000 mile barrier so I would at least have enough miles to get me to Asia in business class someday. Then I found that as of January 1, the mileage requirement will bump up to 120,000 to 125,000 miles for that trip. Burned again. Add on the extra charges and fees that have crept into the price of a ticket and you’re left with a fairly weak enticement. I have all these miles and I feel pressured to use them before they get devalued again. It’s not a good feeling.

I’d probably feel different about these things if I flew enough to qualify for elite status. More and more, elite members in loyalty programs get fees waived, shorter lines, etc. These would all be nice things to have, but I’m like many other people around the US who don’t fly enough to qualify. So, I see no real reason to consolidate my business with anyone in particular.

How do I choose my flights? I look at price and schedule like most people, but I also look at creature comforts. (Yes, I’ll take JetBlue for the TV, even if it’s a few bucks more.) I’ve always thought that I was an outlier in a world where people seem to be mileage-addicted, but I’ve found more and more people lately who agree with me.

Many travelers are becoming so fed up with the frequently changing redemption rules, fees being tacked on to redemptions, and the inability to actually find seat availability that miles are slowly becoming less and less important. It doesn’t help that mileage accrual is accelerating rapidly as airlines continue to rake in the dough by selling miles to partners to hand out. The more miles that are out there, the harder it will be to redeem since so many people are fighting for the same number of seats.

As if that wasn’t enough, all of these rule changes also bring a new level of absurd complication. First there was one level of redemption. Then there was the saver award with limited availability and the standard award with full availability at double the price. Now we have Delta with a three-tiered system that just makes you want to jump off a cliff.

What is the solution to all of this? Don’t just walk away completely from the world of points and miles. Even if there’s only a tiny benefit, it’s still worth being in the game on some level. I would however, recommend that unless you qualify for elite status, you should run away screaming from all the airline programs and find a real program to join.

Personally, I’m a Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) fan. Even with the annual mileage devaluation that sees redemption rates go up on a handful of hotels, the program is still astonishingly simple and quite valuable. Any room can be had for the amount of points listed on the SPG site. There aren’t tiers or availability restrictions. Of course, the Four Points in Pensacola is going to require a lot fewer points than the overwater bungalow in Tahiti, but that makes sense.

Even if you’re not a fan of Starwood hotels, you can transfer your points into many different airline programs at the rate of 1 to 1 and you’ll even get a 5,000 mile bonus when you do it. Oh sure, you can probably earn more miles in a single airline program if you really want to try to game the system, but I’m too busy and too tired for that. I just want to be treated fairly, and the bottom line is that I almost never feel that way when it comes to airline loyalty programs.

Brett Snyder writes The Cranky Flier, an award-winning air travel blog for the traveler. He also blogs for the management-oriented site, BNET Travel. Brett is proud to be an airline dork, and he happily resides near the flight path in Long Beach, California.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 9th, 2008 at 23:29 and is filed under Maximize your Credit Card Rewards. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.