Originally Posted by
garykung
The article is so biased enough that can be simply ignored.
Because of COVID-19, it is obvious that everything has slowed down. Based on everything available, the only available non-flight activity that can earn elite status is credit card spending. These bloggers receive compensations from credit card issuers. In short - they are promoting for their own.
If this idea was so good, AA would have not dropped the idea (previously, AA MM can be earned by credit card spending).
I seriously doubt you read that blog article (or maybe you just didn't understand it).
Yes, the only major non-air partner for the legacy carriers in the US are financial institutions. But the point of the blogger is that this turns out to be an issue given the profit potential of FF programmes even during business-cycle downswings. Carriers outside the US generate substantial revenue from non-air, non-lodging, non-rental, and non-financial businesses such as retail.
The current situation provides a rationale for the managers of the US FF programmes to start tapping into those sources of revenue. It seems like a promising way both to earn more money as well as making the business more resilient to business-cycle fluctuations.