Airline mergers have not been kind to consumers, either on fares or ff programs. I long for the days I could fly NW or CO or the days when AA was still really AA and not taken over by US. Mergers downgrading ff programs actually started with the merger of Air France and KLM where the new Flying Blue ff program was a pale shadow of the preceding Frequence Plus and Flying Dutchman, both of which had been great ff programs. All the airline mergers on this side of the pond also saw ff programs degraded.