5 Charts Showing Pros and Cons of Spend-Based Airline Loyalty Programs
Skift Take
Spend-based airline loyalty programs may sound more fair in theory than using miles flown but PwC's research show it's basically 50/50 in terms of which passengers benefit and which ones lose out.
Now that all three major U.S. carriers' loyalty programs place more emphasis on amount spent on airfares than number of miles flown, following American Airlines AAdvantage program changes this week, it's worth looking at the benefits and setbacks of this new era of airline loyalty.
A PwC report from earlier this year lays out just how impactful these changes are: more than 300 million people in the U.S. and abroad are members of U.S. airline loyalty programs, with seven percent of all miles flown on these carriers paid for using loyalty miles or points.
The report analyzes points awarded to passengers under two program types: miles flown (leg
