Sorry to hear of your issue Bmused…

Indeed, that does definately suck if the number of miles required increases because of the fare increase…some frequent flyer programs use the distance between the two points as a way of calculating the amount of miles needed, thus it does not de-value them. At least that’s what use to happen before Air Miles turned into AVIOS…

Having said that though, using UA’s Mileage Plus progam as an example, its done on a sliding scale…so you can get a flight for as little as 20,000 miles, however you have to pay a substaintial cash sum as well, whereas you could use 100,000 miles and pay just for the taxes…