Skift Take
There may be momentum behind the travel industry's recovery, but plenty of uncertainty is still ahead. Now is not the time to drive customers away with sneaky, overnight devaluing of loyalty points.
With most travel companies expecting a flood of demand this summer, loyalty program experts caution it may be the right time to cash out points before airlines and hotels devalue them.
Airlines like American, United, and Delta used their loyalty programs as collateral to refinance and raise money during the pandemic. Hilton pre-sold $1 billion worth of loyalty points to American Express last April to generate cash during the worst financial point of the pandemic. Travelers continued to add more points with branded credit card purchases over the last year when most people avoided flying and weren’t redeeming miles.
But moves like these flood the market with more points, and eventually the laws of supply and demand will kick in: More points in the
