Hi all,

Does anyone have an opinion on whether this agreement (when it comes into play next year) will affect the way that airlines currently position their cards in terms of the miles offered to fliers?

Got me thinking that if they arn't getting traditional revenues from ticket sales whether anyone had heard any news of sweeping market changes to the way they attract and retain customers?

Being UK based, i would be primarily keen to hear about the UK market but any interesting news is always appreciated!

Thanks

J

While changes are possible, I doubt it'll happen anywhere near immediately.

Traditionally, US FF programs have been based on loyalty, but loyalty in Europe was sort of automatic (except in the UK perhaps) because of usually only one dominant airline per country, and so European FF programs have been based on spending rather than loyalty (for example, BA gives paltry miles to anyone who buys discount economy tickets).

Also, in the US LCCs (Southwest, JetBlue, Virgin America, etc) generally have FF programs (though usually neither mile-based nor spending-based but more number-of-flights based), and thus established US airlines feel they have to compete even on FF program with the LCCs. But the European LCCs (RyanAir, EasyJet, etc) AFAIK don't generally have FF programs, and thus established European airlines which feel they're competing with those LCCs for economy passengers don't feel that they have to give much FF benefits to discount economy passengers.

So I think it'll take something much more than just the start of OpenSkies for the European FF programs to change much in those respects.

However, what'll obviously change is that in some cities you'll have for the first time multiple alliances that you can fly straight out of your city longhaul (BA from CDG, AF from LHR?), which means your practical choice of FF programs will change, even before any of the FF programs themselves change...

Finally, there may be specific changes that happen in OneWorld with respect to the BA-AA blackout on US<->UK flight miles (will the blackout extend to CDG if BA flies CDG-US, or will it be kept at UK only, or will it be relaxed/elminated?). It's not clear that anything will change with this either, but they'll at least have to reexamine the definition of where you can and can't earn BA miles on AA flights or vice versa if BA starts flying from more European countries than just the UK.