Business of Loyalty: The Assault on Redemptions and Airline Loyalty
Skift Take
Are old-school U.S. airlines too focused on short-term profits and competing against low-cost carriers to deliver a quality product to their loyal passengers?
Editor's Note: Skift's Business Traveler newsletter is now the Business of Loyalty newsletter.
In this weekly missive, we'll bring you the same insight into what matters most to the people who travel for a living, but now with an added focus on how airlines, hotels, and credit card programs battle for their attention and their business — a points geek with a Ph.D. of sorts.
While we are still looking at how these moves impact the consumer, the focus is on what the industry is doing to win their loyalty. The newsletter is being written by Grant Martin, who you've come to know as the author of our Business Traveler newsletter over the last three years. He'll be able to take advantage of contributions from Skift editors including Brian Sumers (airlines) and Deanna Ting (hotels) in order to better explain what's happening with loyalty right now. We hope you'll stick with it, and we promise to never devalue your reading experience.
Not long ago, it made sense for elite members in an airline loyalty program to book the cheapest airfare on the market and expect to receive a modicum of decent treatment from the airline in return. Free upg
