Changes Coming to Frequent-Flier Programs
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Here's your money briefing for Thursday, November 18th. I'm Trina Neri for the Wall Street Journal, filling in for J.R. Whalen. Historically, frequent flyer programs were set up to reward loyal customers with perks for the amount of miles they flew. But with flying still down from before the pandemic, things are taking a turn.
So the spending requirements introduced the notion that, you know, what really matters to the airline is how much you pay, not how far you fly.
Coming up, our Middle Sea columnist Scott McCartney will discuss how some airlines are rewriting the rules for their frequent flyer programs and what you'll need to know to get and keep your rewards.
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Traditionally, if you wanted to earn elite status with an airline, you had to rack up a lot of air miles. But now some carriers are rethinking their frequent flyer programs and flying may not matter as much. So what are the new rules and how can you be sure you get rewarded? To find out, I'm joined now by WSJ middle seat columnist Scott McCartney. Hi, Scott. Thanks for being here.
Good to be with you tonight.
Scott, how have airline carriers traditionally rewarded loyal flyers?
How have frequent‑flyer programs traditionally rewarded loyal passengers?
And how is that changing?
Well, if you go back, it was all about how long you sat in a seat, basically. The more miles you flew, the more miles you got. That's how they counted loyalty towards status. And status has really become the major benefit of frequent flyer programs today. And then over the years, airlines started adding requirements about segments and even spending so that people were gaming the system and taking just a few very long flights on very cheap fares and getting a lot of status that way. And so the spending requirements introduced the notion that what really matters to the airline is how much you pay, not how far you fly. So the programs have sort of evolved into frequent spending programs, not frequent flying programs.
And we've seen this sort of go to the full extreme with American Airlines next year. They're changing the rules on their program so that you can get status completely with your credit card. You never have to set foot on an airplane. And you can be one of their top-level frequent flyers simply by spending a lot on the credit card. It makes sense for airlines economically, but it really challenges and changes the notion that these are frequent flyer programs.
So what's actually required to get frequent flyer status under the new approach?
You can get the lower ends of the status tiers fairly easily. For gold status on American, the lowest tier, that requires 30,000 loyalty points. That can be annual spending on a credit card, on the American Airlines co-branded credit card of $30,000. It could be a combination of some flying and a lot of spending, or a lot of flying and a little spending. But the higher tiers are more executive, platinum, requires 200,000 loyalty points. And a lot of people will get those through a mix, but there will be some small business owners and others who have a lot of spending on their credit card and can get that benefit just by steering their spending to the American Airlines card.
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