Tag Archives for devaluation.
ANA Mileage Club has announced an award chart devaluation effective with bookings made starting April 18, 2024. It’s been a decade since they made any changes to award prices, which is why the program’s awards have cost so many fewer miles than competitors.
Turkish Airlines has updated its award charts and it’s an absolute gut punch to the value of the Miles & More program. But there may still be an opportunity to redeem your miles at the old rates.
Days after Virgin Atlantic announced that they’re increasing the price of awards on their U.S. partner for traveling within the U.S. and across the world – except for travel between the U.S. and Europe – British Airways has gone ahead and imposed its own unannounced devaluation for travel on American Airlines and Alaska Airlines.
Southwest Airlines will devalue its points by about 4% on January 1, 2024. The Rapid Rewards program announced several changes a month ago to much fanfare, but this one they buried.
Senators Dick Durbin and Roger Marshall have requested an investigation into airline frequent flyer programs, alleging unfair changes to point systems. However, the senators’ motives may not be genuine consumer protection, as they have proposed a bill that could lead to significant devaluation of these programs, suggesting a hidden agenda to undermine objections to their legislation on credit card interchange.
Emirates as a company hasn’t prioritized loyalty and so the head of loyalty optimizes within that framework. Revenue management won’t release award inventory to the program to any meaningful degree, so Skywards is stuck promoting using their miles as cash towards flights on the airline and cannot buy excess inventory to sell at a profitable discount through the frequency program.
Emirates finally offers an explanation for why they keep raising the price of awards while also adding $1,600 co-pays when you spend your miles. And the answer is, basically, because once you acquire their miles you’re stuck and they can.
Cathay Pacific has announced a devaluation which goes into effect October 1. Unlike U.S. carriers they still have a true award chart, which means that when raising award prices they have to tell you. And they’re giving three months’ advance notice.
Make no mistake, though: Asia Miles will be worth less. The FAQ for the changes even has a question “Are you devaluing Asia Miles?” And even they do not say no.
There’s a tremendous amount of wrangling over what will be in the FAA’s 5-year reauthorization currently being developed in Congress.
One lesser-noticed item that’s been posted by the Senate Commerce Committee includes protections for members of frequent flyer programs stating that frequent flyer programs wouldn’t be able to devalue their miles without first giving members 90 days’ advance notice
United MileagePlus has increased the cost of transatlantic awards on its own flights by one-third, and on partners by 39% – 46%. We’ll see what the effects are on other regions.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
