How do spend-based earning models in airline rewards programs affect the behavior of frequent flyers?

United announced today that they are moving to revenue-based frequent flyer earning next year. They say this is part of making their program better. More faux changes you’re gonna like. Here’s how many miles you will earn for flying United flights and crediting miles to United’s frequent flyer program starting March 1 of next year — based on the cost of your ticket. It’s not actually that simple, of course, since Actual mileage posting will be determined by the actual ticket price, purchased ticket routing, fare class, Premier status, residency and ticket issue date. For tickets

British Airways is moving to a system where you’ll earn Avios, the points currency used to fuel the loyalty program, based on how much you spend rather than how far you fly. Air travel is a particularly emotional endeavor and that’s even true when things go on time without a hitch. It may not be new, but flying is still aspirational and vital for so many reasons. For a long time, the way people earned miles and rewards in the British Airways Executive Club when flying was based actually on the distance flown. It matched the emotional component

There’s nothing sacrosanct about miles per se. Sure, it doesn’t make sense for a program that gives out points based on how much you spend to call those points ‘miles’. But Capital One does it, so why can’t Delta? At best miles are a proxy for a loyalty relationship: more miles flown is more of one’s life spent in an airline’s metal tube. That loyalty relationship goes well beyond rebates or punch cards in getting people to prefer one airline’s product over another. When airlines boil down rewards to percentage back on transactions they lose the psychological leverage

There are many great ways to earn miles, and many of those are neglected by the average frequent flyer. While the greatest miles and points deals ever are long gone, that’s how these things work. The best deals don’t last. Which is why it pays to stay alert, and not leave miles on the table. Back when I started in miles and points there weren’t even airline alliance awards. You couldn’t combine different airline partners on a single ticket. Most programs required you travel fly roundtrips. Credit card bonuses were much smaller (I had never seen a 20,000 mile

Last week, British Airways announced major changes to their loyalty program. They are rebranding the Executive Club to the British Airways Club and are making significant changes that have many frequent flyers scratching their heads. The changes include a shift to revenue-based elite status tiers and overhauling and increasing their tier thresholds. This unfortunately hinders the ability for the average traveler to obtain higher status with British Airways. We’ve seen this from other airlines in recent years too, including ones in the United States. This begs the question: Is chasing airline status worth it anymore? Frequent flyer

In my post about Delta’s slow lurch towards a ‘revenue-based’ frequent flyer program, commenter Ian asks Gary, your post has raised a question I would love for you to answer, especially considering JetBlue and Virgin America recently introducing frequent flyer/loyalty programs which are revenue-based. If you were running a airline would you advocate a revene-based program? Are revenue-based programs the future of all legacy airlines? It seems this might earn an airline more money. As a frequent flyer who mostly benefits on the margin I do not like revenue-based programs but don’t know if I can argue

In offering commentary on the major changes coming to the British Airways program, Lucky concludes, This change is pretty in line with what I expect from airlines in 2015: - British Airways is being less rewarding to those on lower fares - British Airways is being more rewarding to those on expensive fares “British Airways is being more rewarding to those on expensive fares” is what they want the narrative to be But I don’t think it’s quite accurate: So it’s not at all obvious that expensive fares come out ahead. For many it’ll