My point is that should this concept of the author's take off, we'll just be in some new decision-lock hell, where you'll never be getting"the best deal" because to do so would require solving the most insane graph reduction problem ever conceived.
This is exactly how I feel about "travel hacking". Not the earning points part, which is fairly straightforward, but the redemption part. If I want to go to Bogota on vacation for specific dates and I have hundreds of thousands of airline miles and rewards points spread across a half dozen programs, the number of options is ridiculous. I can book with cash, pay with reward points, or book via dozens of different airlines and partner airlines with various fare classes, stopover options, etc. Worse, if you're fortunate enough to have a lot of flexibility around when and where you travel ("I want to go to South America sometime this summer"), the complexity skyrockets even further. It's just frustrating because even when I do piece together a deal, I can't help but feel that I'm still paying double what I would if I looked at the options differently.
This is exactly how I feel about "travel hacking". Not the earning points part, which is fairly straightforward, but the redemption part. If I want to go to Bogota on vacation for specific dates and I have hundreds of thousands of airline miles and rewards points spread across a half dozen programs, the number of options is ridiculous. I can book with cash, pay with reward points, or book via dozens of different airlines and partner airlines with various fare classes, stopover options, etc. Worse, if you're fortunate enough to have a lot of flexibility around when and where you travel ("I want to go to South America sometime this summer"), the complexity skyrockets even further. It's just frustrating because even when I do piece together a deal, I can't help but feel that I'm still paying double what I would if I looked at the options differently.