Photo by hellolapomme

Blogger Chris Guillebeau recently wrote about his experience acquiring over 800,000 US Airways miles. This got me thinking about the risk element involved in much of air travel.

Most readers would view the risk of being stuck in a middle seat at the back of Economy Class on a longhaul flight as something to be avoided. Yet 90% of passengers simply don’t care or don’t know any better. They sit wherever the computer system assigns them.

It is almost a challenge for me to secure the best possible seat on the aircraft that I can. In recent memory I have never had a single occurrence of being stuck in a terrible seat though.

It would seem that with proper planning and a firm understanding of the rules, the risk we as frequent flyers face, really isn’t that great in terms of seating. Chris’ experience, risking several thousand dollars on the hope of US Airways honouring a highly exploitable promotion was a slightly different block of cheese.

I still take the view that with enough understanding, research and experience the risk is far more calculated that most people realise. To my knowledge, there has never been a major promotion that failed to honour the miles promised, despite blatant exploitation. That being said, there is bound to be a first case where a lot of people are left out of pocket.

In the mean time, the sheer value that travel hackers are obtaining by exploiting frequent flyer programs makes for some very good odds. I for one, will continue to take worthwhile risks in the name of acquiring vast amount of frequent flyer miles.