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[quote=Anonymous]Airfare is SO much cheaper than it was 30 years ago.  I remember paying $400 each way for my cross-country trips in 1990 to go to college -- and that was with aggressive price shopping and the cheapest airlines.  That would be about $1K in today's dollars.  No way would you pay $1K each way for a cross-country trip on a random day in September or May.   I don't think I even paid $400 each way for Christmas week.  We never stayed in hotels in the 1970s, so I think they were also relatively more expensive.  For hotels, a big part of hte price decrease is the major upswings in immigration over the past 20 years or so -- who do you think is building, staffing, cleaning those hotels?  Mostly very cheap immigrant labor.   I think that's also even true in Europe now--they were able to staff up first with people coming from Eastern Europe after the fall of the Wall, and then coming from the Middle East.

Plus everyone (except me) has miles.  I think it's one of the biggest scams/tax dodges around.  People fly for business and get miles -- even paying extra (and charging their employer/client) to get extra miles.  It's a massive untaxed benefit.

And then it just becomes a feedback loop.  Everyone sees everyone else doing it, so they are more likely to prioritize it.  It just wasn't as much of a status thing for most people in the 70s and 80s.
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