Ed Perkins on Travel: What’s the Buzz?

Frequent flyer loyalty program. Dreamstime/TNS

Airlines are consumer columnists’ best friends: We can count on them to keep feeding us with stuff to cover—to keep having breakdowns and to keep making things worse for you, their customers.

The main airline buzz this week is about frequent flyer programs. Specifically, it’s about the way airlines are steadily devaluating the points and miles for which you so assiduously moil. And they’re doing that by steadily downgrading all four key program features:

• Earning miles is getting tougher all the time, as more and more lines move toward basing mileage earnings on money spent rather than miles or legs flown. Currently the culprit of the day is Delta, which recently announced some changes, but other lines are making similar moves.
• Finding low-mileage awards gets tougher and tougher. For my last European trip in 2022, for example, I found a business-class round-trip from my home airport to Frankfurt, Germany, for 130,000 United miles. Now, the best deal I can find is more than double that figure. I can’t even find premium economy for the miles I previously used for business. Travelers all around the country report similar problems.
• Elite status is the holy grail of frequent flyer membership for many road warriors: Status gets you in line for “free” upgrades out of the miserable main cabin on domestic flights—the higher your status, the higher you move on the list. As with miles, airlines are increasingly linking status to money spent.
• Lounge access is a real hotspot, especially for Delta. The blogosphere is rife with pictures of long lines of eligible travelers waiting in line to get into Delta’s busy lounges.

We get it. Frequent flyer programs are called “loyalty” programs for a reason; they’re designed to keep members loyal to their brands. And the members the airlines most want to keep loyal are the big spending road warriors. Frequent flyer programs were never designed to give us less frequent travelers a good deal. And although we likely never achieve high status, we have enjoyed the chance to fly to Europe in business class once in a while, or grab a spur-of-the-moment trip to Vegas or New York City—a benefit that is fading rapidly.

To me, the biggest surprise is that none of the big-time frequent flyer bloggers has yet made massive downgrades to their valuations of miles. They’re still pegging them at 1.5 to 2 cents a mile, which to me, is now a gross overvaluation. Maybe soon we’ll see changes—I'll let you know.

Meanwhile, my take is that you should keep participating in your various programs—every once in a while, one of your lines might throw you a bone. But consider ditching that mileage-earning credit card: These days, quite a few cards offer up to a full 2 cents per dollar on all spending—and that’s worth more than one mile every time.

Another area of focus is the upcoming FAA reauthorization bill. My consumer advocate colleagues are steadfastly lobbying for some sorely needed consumer protections, as the airlines are working just as hard—and with lots more money—to take away an important protection you currently enjoy. Currently, the bill’s status is enveloped in procedural complexities I don’t begin to understand, let alone try to explain to anyone else. But you need to know the stakes:

• Airlines want to undo the longstanding Department of Transportation (DoT) rule requiring them to display full fares, including fees and taxes, in fare advertisements and in fare quotations and comparisons.
• Consumer advocates are asking that DoT do what Congress has already told them to do and set minimum seat sizes needed for safety. We’re also asking for cash payments to passengers in the event of delays caused by an airline, along with requirements for extending the validity of vouchers and other protections.

I can’t begin to foresee the outcome. As currently written, the Senate version of the bill generally favors consumers and the House version favors airlines. All I can say now is “stay tuned” to await the outcome.