Archive for August, 2024

IAG has formally withdrawn from the intended take-over of Air Europa after the conditions imposed by the European Union have become not viable anymore.

Air Europa, which has been distracted for years by this project, now faces the difficult challenge to reposition itself for an independent future. Efforts need to be increased at all levels, notably at the loyalty level, where not much has happened with its SUMA program as of lately either.

Air Europa will also remain in SkyTeam and as such a partner in all SkyTeam programs. But this is probably the only thing, which is really sure about its future.

While SkyTeam may keep Air Europa in its ranks, it will though lose Czech Airlines on October 26. The company will be fully folded into its parent company Smart Wings and cease its program OK Plus without replacement.

Miles need to be used by that date, including on partner airlines. You should note, however, that it won’t be enough for tickets to be issued by then, but flights must actually take place. This is important to remember since most members would actually risk using their miles on partners (which include Etihad next to the SkyTeam partners) as Czech Airlines itself only operated two routes on a regular basis (Prague-Paris CDG/Madrid) as of recently.

OK Plus used to be one of the most generous programs in SkyTeam and will certainly be missed by those still remembering the good old days!

While many European co-branded credit cards have become less appealing over the last few years due to lowered interchange fees between banks, rewarding offers seem still to be possible, as Aer Lingus demonstrates.

The program is relaunching its Mastercard, issued by Bank of Ireland, on October 23. The base earn rate is still weak with 1 mile per 3 EUR spent (but an improvement from the current 1 per 4). This earn rate is though dramatically improved by an annual bonus of 40,000 miles for spending 10,000 EUR.

Combined with the low base earn rate and the limited other benefits, the strategy for that card should hence clearly be to reach the annual 10,000-EUR threshold, without though going beyond it.

Indian low cost carrier IndiGo has opened pre-registrations for its first ever loyalty program, IndiGo Blu Chip. Much is not yet known about the program, but it will be a true loyalty program other than the current credit card-based program 6E Rewards.

Why you should care about this? For the very simple reason that IndiGo is one of the fastest growing airlines in the world. It has more than 1,000 (!) Airbus 320 family aircraft on order and added 30 Airbus 350 long-haul aircraft to that earlier in the year. The airline will hence soon become a common sight at airports around the world.

Let’s hope its Frequent Flyer Program will live up to those expectations!

Some time ago, Expedia unified the different loyalty programs of its brands into the group-wide OneKey program. That program notably replaced the popular program of Hotels.com, Hotels.com Rewards, where members earned easily one free night after each ten nights.

OneKey had so far only been rolled out in the US and the UK – but Expedia’s data shows that Hotels.com has suffered substantially from that change. As a result, it was decided to pause the roll-out of OneKey to other markets until a new strategy is defined.

So, if you are lucky and don’t live in one of the two OneKey markets, Hotels.com Rewards should be used without moderation until further notice…