George,

You are probably correct. The old time traditional Frequent Flier was the corporate guy who did not know what his Company paid for his ticket. Mostly those are tickets for fully refundable last minute travel (kind of like a positive space non rev, and that's exactly how it "feels" )

Because most of my clients' assignments are near my office, I never rack up a lot of miles. Yet, on average my tickets cost > $1,000 plus service fees. For purchasers like me, this change is terrific. Since I'm usually paying 400% of a First Class ticket booked 14 days out it is nice for the program to evolve its standards for recognition.

Many of our FF are leisure travelers who are very savy at scoring low priced fares. God bless those folks, we love their business. But, it is a little unfair for the high margin guys to get thrown in back when you consider what they pay for "flexibility."

We just have to be careful not to offend our lower yielding passengers by letting them know in some way that we appreciate them too. US Air produced surprisingly good numbers this year. If they merge with American they are going to be even tougher competition, particularly for the flexible travelers.