Airlines Sweeten Frequent-Flyer Deals to Lure Travelers
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What frequent-flyer offers are airlines promoting to lure nervous travelers?
Here's your money briefing for Thursday, October 15th. I'm J.R. Whalen for The Wall Street Journal. There are a lot of reasons why people aren't flying these days, from travel restrictions to health concerns to cost. Airlines are trying to get travelers to at least consider returning to the friendly skies, so they're sweetening their frequent flyer deals to levels not seen in years.
All the traditional perks that you get from a loyalty program, waivers of check bag fees, early boarding, extra legroom seats, upgrades, things like that, nobody really cares about that now. So how do you keep the programs relevant? Offering really good deals with miles is one way for airlines to say, hey, we know you're not traveling much right now. We know the frequent flyer program may not be that important to you, but here is good value.
Our middle seat columnist Scott McCartney has run the numbers. He'll tell us how attractive frequent flyers have become. That's after the break.
Air travel is still well below what it was before the pandemic, and now the airlines are dangling sweet frequent flyer deals to entice nervous travelers. A recent survey by Ideaworks took a look at how many miles airlines are charging passengers to buy a ticket. Our Middle Sea columnist Scott McCartney is here with the details. Hey Scott, thanks for joining us. Good to be with you. So this is really good news for people that feel comfortable flying. Can you give us some examples of how sweet these mileage deals are compared to pre-pandemic?
Yeah, this survey looked at the best case scenario, but also their busiest routes. And this was just domestic. And for United, it had the lowest average, 12,833 miles round trip. That was actually almost half of what United was charging in a survey last year. Different travel time periods, but comparable in many ways.
How much have domestic award-mile prices dropped compared with last year?
This survey looked at November, which is a relatively slow month, but also has some of the busiest travel days of the year over Thanksgiving. And Thanksgiving was included in the survey. American was the highest, but it was only 21,800 miles round trip. So still very low. And the huge savings, I thought, came in first class. American had average first class tickets in their top markets of only 42,500 miles. That's what we used to pay for coach. basically. And Delta was also under 50,000 miles for first class, United close to that. So some very good deals. I think first class is particularly attractive to people right now who want some distance on the airplane. And that extra legroom can also be a virus protection as well.
Now, you mentioned domestic flights. Any indication of international flights have some of these deals also?
Well, for the most part, that's just not an issue for travelers right now. There are some people traveling, but certainly nobody's taking a leisure trip to Europe.
Which airlines show the biggest savings for first-class award redemptions?
You'd have to quarantine for 14 days if the country would let you in. There are some islands in the Caribbean that are opening up if you have a PCR test before you arrive, for example, and in Mexico. But there's just so little international travel. The survey didn't look at that.
And the availability has dropped off as well. You know, airlines are flying far less planes these days. Also, many have blocked off the middle seat in a lot of cases. So there are less seats to fill.
Yes, we'll see. I mean, if you look at schedules, what will be out there for November will be about a third of what was out there before. I think the demand for travel is even lower than that. So even though there are fewer flights, there are far fewer passengers. And what we're seeing in particular with the availability of cheap first-class awards is those are seats that are usually bought by business travelers. And airlines don't make them available to frequent flyers because they can sell them to business travelers. But business travel is basically nonexistent. So it was interesting. American said, you know, the most popular days that they used to see for buying first class seats used to be Monday and Thursday.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What frequent-flyer offers are airlines promoting to lure nervous travelers?
0:05–2:02
2
How much have domestic award-mile prices dropped compared with last year?
2:02–3:14
3
Which airlines show the biggest savings for first-class award redemptions?
3:14–6:03
4
Are there comparable mileage deals available for international flights right now?
6:03–9:55
5
Why are airlines increasing award availability despite flying fewer routes?
9:55–11:15
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from WSJ Your Money Briefing
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