The Best Frequent Flier Programs of 2018
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
I'm J.R.
Whalen in New York. Which airlines offer the most attractive frequent flyer programs of 2018? We'll discuss in a moment. First, these money headlines. Credit card companies could be seeing unsettled skies on the horizon. Rising loan losses and increased rewards expenses are putting pressure on card lenders' returns. The result is that one of the most profitable consumer lending categories in recent years,
Which airlines had the best frequent-flyer programs in 2018?
It could face leaner times. While cards remain highly lucrative for banks, the benefits of a rising interest rate environment have been muted lately. The added revenue of cardholders paying more in interest payments each month has also been offset by growing competition from lenders trying to poach card customers by offering lower rates. Growing demand from consumers and businesses pushed U.S. industrial production higher in April. The .7 percent jump represented the third straight month of higher production.
What were the major money headlines before the frequent-flyer discussion?
Households are buying more consumer goods and companies are stepping up investment in equipment as they gain confidence in the economy. and factories in turn are stepping up output. Factory output rose 0.5% over the month and 1.8% over the past year. The industrial sector is a slice of the overall economy, but the boost in output suggests the economy is strengthening. And investing in cryptocurrency can be a thrill, but also dangerous. So the SEC has launched a parody website to illustrate how easily investors in initial coin offerings can be scammed. The site, called HowieCoins.com, is complete with celebrity endorsements, a profile of the website's team, and full specs of a fake ICO. When visitors click on the Buy Coins Now button, they're taken to a page with stern warnings about the promise of guaranteed returns, celebrity endorsements, a white paper with a vague explanation of the investment opportunity, and a countdown clock.
This is your Money Briefing from The Wall Street Journal. Welcome back, everyone. Air travelers have long complained about the availability or lack thereof of frequent flyer award seats as well as the number of miles needed to qualify for such seats. So are the airlines coming around to passengers' concerns? Wall Street Journal middle seat columnist Scott McCartney joins us via Skype to take a look at the top frequent flyer programs for 2018. So, Scott, it seems that this will be an ongoing thorn in the side of passengers, but in terms of award programs, it's safe to say that American Airlines gets the gold star for most improved.
Yeah, this has been a long time coming, but American had a very good year in terms of improving their award availability at the basic level. We've worked with a consulting firm on this survey for years, the past nine years. Last year, as in previous years, American was very low in award availability. Of all the, and this company makes thousands of queries, of all the queries on American, there was about 50% availability for the dates and routes that we looked at. And this year, they jumped almost 30 points to close to 80%. So significant improvement. American made specific changes to make awards easier to get, and it showed up in the survey.
And the way these awards are measured is how many seats are available on trips of more than 2,500 miles. Is that right?
Well, so they look for long-haul routes of more than 2,500 miles and also medium routes, less than 2,500 miles. And they look at each airline's 10 busiest routes. So you give the airline the best chance for success. You presume that routes where they have their most flights, they're going to have most seats available. And certainly those are the routes that their customers are most traveling. They look for two seats together and they look at the basic saver level. So traditionally for U.S. airlines, That's 25,000 miles for coach domestic ticket. You can certainly pay a whole lot more miles and get more availability. But the advantage of this is we thought really, really better to look at, you know, these are the awards that people most want to get.
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