Paradise will always be there, but your free ride may not be. If you want to go to places like Hawaii or Europe in high season, you'll have a devil of a time doing it on a frequent-flier award. There are a lot more people holding miles to fly to paradise than there are airline seats to accommodate them. Industrywide, airlines allot 7.3 percent of capacity to those flying on free frequent-flier tickets, though some airlines offer more. These programs are growing, growing, growing.
Demand is at an all-time high.
One reason frequent-flier programs are soaring in popularity is because they've branched out from their original purpose, which was to reward frequent passengers. Today, you can get miles from almost any purchase - a call on your cellphone, gasoline for your car, a lunchtime pastrami sandwich. You can, in fact, acquire enough miles to obtain a free trip without ever having stepped into an airplane. But using those miles for travel is another matter. Airlines only allot a certain number of seats per flight to frequent-flier awards, and on popular destinations, those go fast.