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On April 02, United will make its MileagePlus program a bit more interesting for holders of one of its co-branded credit cards – but practically useless for everyone else.

As a credit card holder, you will earn one more mile per USD on United flights (so 6 miles per USD as a basic member), but otherwise 2 miles less (so 3 miles per USD as a basic member). At Basic Economy fares, non-cardholders will no longer earn any miles at all as a basic member, and even cardholders will only earn 3 miles per USD.

At the same time, flight awards on United will be discounted by 10% for credit card holders.

All of this aims, of course, at forcing customers to use a credit card, which is a huge source of revenue for United, as it is for other U.S. carriers.

The small problem with that, however, is that United currently serves 73 countries outside the U.S., but only offers a credit card in 13 markets (eight of which are in Central America). Even if you wanted to play the game, members in key markets like Germany, Spain or China simply don’t have that option.

If you, as a frequent flyer, expect a certain level of planning security from your program, you are unfortunately quite misplaced with ITA.

In a somewhat peculiar manner of communication, ITA updated the program conditions of its VOLARE program without informing the members about it.

The program will be available only until March 30. After that, no more points can be collected, but until April 30, points can still be redeemed with program partners – but not with ITA itself!

And then? Presumably, the program will merge into Miles & More. Presumably, unused points will not be carried over. Presumably, most of the reward partners are no longer offered, as Miles & More does not operate on such a concept.

Presumably.

Until the end of the year, you can earn double reward and status miles on flights of SkyTeam member Vietnam Airlines in their Lotusmiles program – provided that the bookings are made online and on Fridays. On domestic flights, the double status miles only apply to existing status customers.

If you are planning trips to the region (or even with connections, e.g., to Australia), such flexibility is definitely worth it. This way, with a single round trip between Ho Chi Minh City and Paris or London in Business Class at the Flex fare, you can achieve Platinum status, which corresponds to SkyTeam Elite Plus status.

And if you already have enough miles in your account by May 31, you can also benefit from an awards promotion: All international award flights until the end of the year – if booked by May 31 – are reduced by 20% during off-peak periods, some (e.g. Milan) even by 40% and the flights Hanoi-Amsterdam even by 60%, which makes them a real bargain!

If, like Hyatt, you combine a revenue-based earning structure in your loyalty program with a fixed award chart, then regular award increases are unavoidable.

Hyatt last did this in their World of Hyatt in 2021, and we all know the developments in hotel prices since then. Thus, the price increases that will come into effect in May are quite steep and are being heavily criticised from all sides. However, the criticism should be more moderate if the accrual velocity were also taken into account correctly.

An unexpected side effect of this increase in award prices, however, is that the conversion to Frequent Flyer miles suddenly becomes more interesting, as nothing is changing there. Previously, you had to weigh up whether to use a Category 4 reward night or a short-haul reward flight with Air France or KLM, which you could get by transferring points into Virgin Atlantic’s Flying Club program. From May, for the same number of points, you will only get a Category 3 reward night – but still the same reward flight.

In uncertain times, the question always arises whether one should redeem miles or not.

While there are generally several reasons in favour – better availability during low-demand periods, higher flexibility for rebookings – this time it might look a bit different: Due to high fuel prices, most airlines have already increased their fuel surcharges – even though many have secured fuel at a fixed price for the entire year through so-called fuel hedging – and in most Frequent Flyer programs, you have to pay these surcharges for award flights. Since these surcharges mean that award flights are not always economically attractive even in normal times, it looks obviously even worse now.

The situation is different only in the US and some other programs, where award flights are exempt from these surcharges.

28 November 2022

Several recent experiences let us recognize a drift towards a situation where established loyalty platform suppliers are no longer living up to the responsibility their role comes with. A change is urgently required here.

I’ve been passionate about aviation ever since I can remember and about FFPs ever since I started to think – yes, I am not one of these young bloggers, who were even not yet among us on 01 May 1981, when an idea of American Airlines was

20 May 2022

One of the big winners of the Covid crisis are experience awards. They have indeed the potential to add some excitement to members, unrelated to other aspects. But why only few loyalty programs get this right?

09 May 2022

My personal take was that the travel industry would use the downtime of Covid to reinvest in reconsidering certain CRM practices as this would have a long term impact on their business. A reality check shows, however, that my assumption was wrong.

26 February 2022

Usually, businesses are well advised to stay out of politics. But as things can’t be called usual anymore right now, the picture might be different this time. So, what to do with the members based in Russia we all have in our loyalty programs?