One of Holly Hegeman’s readers rants about frequent flyer miles and concludes

I’ve just cut up my Alaska Visa card and feel much better.

Only I don’t get it.

They wanted to fly from Spokane to Los Angeles, and the non-stop flights were available on awards. But they didn’t like the plane being flown on the route (as if this was the fault of the frequent flyer program) and were annoyed that the specific connecting flights they wanted weren’t available so they were faced with long layover. The non-stop flights were available as awards, as far as I’m concerned end of complaint.

Then they redeemed their miles for premium awards on British Airways. They took business class but they didn’t like that they couldn’t get assigned seats on British Airways … an annoying British Airways policy, not a failure of Alaska’s Mileage Plan.

So they decided they wanted to fly first class instead and were willing to spend the extra miles. (Something they were offered originally, but declined.) So they called back, got the first class seat, and had to pay a change fee.

Egads!

For both the award redemptions, they found availability. In one case the didn’t like the non-stop and in the other they changed their mind about what they wanted and had to pay a change fee when the mileage program gave them what they wanted now.

Sounds more like a success story than a complaint, to me!