[andyman1080]

Part of the reason this hobby continues to exist (and remain so lucrative for some participants) is because they are such a small segment of the total passenger miles traveled. If we had some numbers I think it would dramatically weaken this particular argument. Also in general the airlines' primary justification for giving away seats as awards is that they predict those seats will go unsold.

[saryant]

I'd be surprised if there are more than a thousand or so people who game the FF programs to this degree. And the number who do so to the degree of Lucky (subject of the article) is probably in the single digits.

That said, I don't think Lucky even comes close to the amount of flying Tom Struker does, United's only 10 million mile member.