The Weimar Mark, 2024 Airline Miles and the Collapse of a Currency

by Robert McGarvey

I have stepped into the Weimar Republic. Not the good parts – the free speech, a genuine democracy and excitement bubbling through philosophy, painting, architecture – but the galloping inflation that pounded the mark into near worthlessness,

Of course I am actually speaking about airline miles and I will tell why momentarily.

First, a history lesson.  The 1920s Weimar Republic was yoked by crippling debts from WW I and a ruined economy.  The upshot was a currency in free fall.  As reported in Smithsonian, “In January 1923, a dollar cost 17,000 marks. Just three months later, in April, that figure reached 24,000. The numbers skyrocketed each month, reaching 353,000 in July, 4.6 million in August, 98.9 million in September, 25.3 billion in October and 2.2 trillion in November. The sorry climax arrived in December, when the exchange rate topped out at 4.2 trillion marks to the dollar.”

The hyperinflation was so vigorous that if you were given a 100 mark note at noon, you would have spent it by 12:05, on just about any tangible goods likely to hold value from shoes (they didn’t have to fit you) to beer, butter and bread (the three building blocks of the German diet in that era).

My thesis today is that air miles are on the precipice of becoming kin to the Weimar mark as ever more miles are handed out as welcome mats for taking a new credit card through miles accrued for buying a Big Mac with an airline credit card.  There simply is no way to count how many miles are distributed daily.

In the old days we earned our miles the honest way: by flying. Now we earn them every way and of course we earn so much more.

There aren’t many more flights however. In 2004 there were 630 million domestic flight enplanements.  In 2019 there were 811 million. (The numbers from 2020 – 2022 are Covid tainted.)

That’s around 25% more enplanements.

In 2002 there were 119 million passengers boarding international flights at US airports.  In 2023 there were 175 million international passengers.  That’s a significant jump, yes, but think about all the extra miles we earn.

Just this morning I picked up 260 Amex rewards miles at a periodontist!

That’s the prelude that explains why yesterday I used 302,600 Delta miles to buy two coach – not comfort class, coach – tickets to Madrid from Phoenix in July.

I wiped out the miles earned as welcome rewards on a couple of Delta credit cards and emptied all but 3000 rewards miles at Amex.  Yesterday I woke up with over 300,000 possible Delta miles. Today I have under 10,000 in multiple accounts, kind of the spare change amid couch cushions.

And I don’t regret any of it, don’t feel bad about what I did. Indeed I celebrate and commend likewise to you.

A few months ago I did a similar wipe of a Southwest miles stash.

How many miles are you hoarding?

Remember: the smart credo today with airline miles if you have ‘em, burn ‘em. Because tomorrow they will be worth less.

As for why, specifically, I cashed in the miles now for July flights, it’s that I anticipate vigorous demand for flights to Europe again in summer 2024.  The economy is roaring (the pessimists who say otherwise simply are wrong or perhaps are just lying for political purposes).  Flights to Europe will fill up.  I wanted as much choice as I could get and that meant shopping early.

Maybe there are better uses of miles – perhaps in acquiring merchandise. I never have, can’t say, but I doubt it, simply because the machinery that now cranks out miles for just about everything we can do or buy is well oiled and relentless. Thirty years ago it was a rare month when I accrued 5000 miles – that basically meant I’d flown from LAX to Dublin – whereas now it is the exceptionally rare month that I don’t bring in 5000 miles via credit cards.

You too probably.

Airline miles today are a 2024 equivalent of the German mark a century ago. That’s just fact.

If you have miles, burn ’em before they are further devalued.