Grant Martin

Despite a rocky integration with Starwood Preferred Guest, Marriott performed well in this year’s loyalty rankings. Southwest Airlines, meanwhile, continued its reliable drumbeat of dominance.

If United and Chase can't forge an exclusive agreement on how they market credit cards, the door may open for other banks like Citi, Barclays, or American Express to pitch a United co-branded product.

Despite the issue of seat recline being a perennial hot-button topic, most passengers seem to be in support of Delta limiting the amount of seat recline on some flights.

JetBlue’s upcoming expansion will be a great opportunity for those with extra TrueBlue points to book award seats to Europe. Don’t expect any screaming deals though.

United will move to a dynamic-pricing model and remove its award chart on November 15. For flexible and thrifty travelers, this may help some score a bargain-basement award seat. Others who are used to predictable award tiers may find the news distressing.

Alaska's continued efforts to appeal to transcontinental airline passengers is creating lucrative bonuses for frequent flyers.

Portions of Hyatt's recent Two Roads acquisition are already getting incorporated into World of Hyatt, which should delight loyalty program members.

World of Hyatt members have a wider spectrum of hotels to look forward to in their loyalty program later this year. Starting this week, portions of Hyatt's acquisition of Two Roads Hospitality will start getting incorporated into the loyalty program.

Until recently, Cathay Pacific was the only carrier that American Airlines frequent flyers could use to travel into China with frequent flyer benefits. A new partnership with China Southern will extend that reach significantly.

American's loyalty members may no longer have to worry about the mixed messages coming from China Southern and its plans to join the Oneworld Alliance. With a new partnership, frequent flyers on both carriers will now be able to reap benefits — with or without China Southern playing a role in Oneworld.