The Frequent-Flier Trick That Won’t Work Anymore

Airlines now want to reward customers for the amount of money they spend, rather than the miles or legs they fly, making the road-warrior tradition all but pointless. Mileage runs have been losing utility for years. Carriers have engineered a shift to rewarding travelers who spend more or use an airline’s credit card.

Some airlines, including American and JetBlue, only award status based on how much customers spend. United and Southwest are among those that track the number of flights a customer takes, but award elite status largely based on dollars spent.

Delta Air Lines was the last of the largest U.S. airlines to keep rewarding fliers for their mileage. It received a hail of criticism this fall when it announced changes to its SkyMiles program to reward only spending.

Matthew Klint, editor of travel blog Live and Let’s Fly, has gone on mileage runs for nearly two decades. Their heyday may have passed, but holding elite status with an airline still carries practical benefits, he says. The perks can include upgrades to better seats, lounge access, free checked luggage and priority boarding and customer service.

The changes to frequent-flier programs reflect “the emerging consensus that loyalty was better measured by dollars spent rather than miles flown," Klint says. The increased emphasis on opening credit cards underscores how airlines profit from relationships with financial institutions.

Delta is allowing fliers with enough qualifying miles to roll over their status to future years. Customers can also convert them into qualifying dollars to count toward their status in 2024. Travel hackers have taken to the skies on extra year-end trips to extend their Delta status one more time.

Angie Mackall, a 51-year-old accountant from New Waterford, Ohio, says she has earned most of her miles from a Delta-branded credit card. When she realized she was less than 1,000 qualifying miles short of Gold Medallion status, she started scanning for cheap flights.

Mackall booked a one-day trip with her sister-in-law to New York using rewards miles.

During the early-December trip, the pair visited the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center, saw the Rockettes perform and savored Junior’s cheesecake at their hotel. “We got up six hours later and went back to the airport," she says.

Playing the game

In the scramble to fly maximum distance for minimal money, mileage-run itineraries can verge on the extraordinary.

Travel hackers regularly brag in online forums about legendary runs. One redditor described a four-day mileage trek starting in Newark, N.J., and ending at New York LaGuardia. It included stops in Houston, Honolulu, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Seattle, Anchorage, Alaska, and São Paulo. The frequent flier only stepped outside an airport for one four-hour stint.

Philip Grossman, a 54-year-old cinematographer and engineer from Atlanta, went on a mileage run last year. He says he circumnavigated the globe in 72 hours, bouncing from Atlanta to Tokyo to Paris to Amsterdam, then back to Atlanta. In Tokyo, he had to switch from Narita International Airport to Haneda Airport during his 16-hour layover.

This year, Grossman flew to Berlin on Dec. 16, with a layover in Amsterdam. That earned the last few dollars he needed to reach Platinum Medallion status on Delta.

Grossman says he’ll continue to take ambitious trips in the future, but will need to find other ways to maintain Platinum Medallion status. To do so, travelers currently must accrue 75,000 qualifying miles or 100 qualifying flight segments, along with spending $12,000 qualifying dollars, unless they have a spending waiver from their credit card.

Next year, travelers will simply need to spend $15,000 in qualifying dollars to reach Platinum status. Grossman says he may pay for upgrades during work trips to maximize his spending.

Policy makers have taken notice of these changes. Transportation Department officials are meeting with U.S. airlines to discuss complaints they have received. “We plan to carefully review complaints regarding loyalty programs and exercise our authority to investigate airlines for unfair and deceptive practices that hurt travelers as warranted," a DOT spokesman said in an email.

While some travelers bemoan the loss of the mileage run, loyalty programs generally keep customers hooked, says Jay Zagorsky, an associate professor at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business who has studied frequent-flier programs.

“People actually in some ways, deep down, don’t mind when the rules change a little bit, because it keeps things interesting," he says.

Environmental impact

Like all air travel, flying just for miles carries an environmental toll. Major U.S. airlines consumed roughly 16.5 billion gallons of jet fuel in 2022, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, generating billions of pounds in carbon-dioxide emissions. A 2021 study published in the journal Environmental Research Letters estimated that aviation accounts for around 4% of human-induced global warming.

Alaska Airlines, which still rewards travelers based on miles flown, has been testing a program where its Mileage Plan members can earn elite-qualifying miles by buying credits for sustainable aviation fuel. Members can earn 500 elite-qualifying miles for every $100 of those credits purchased, up to a maximum of 5,000 miles.

“Folks ultimately flying on planes simply to earn miles is something that we’re very mindful of," says Brett Catlin, Alaska’s vice president of loyalty, alliances and sales. Thousands have already taken advantage of the offer, which expires at year’s end, he says.

Megan Cox, a 31-year-old from Bloomington, Ind., took a jaunt to Mexico City last December, earning miles with Delta through partner airline Aeromexico. Cox, who gives travel advice on TikTok, says she spent around $2,000 on the weekend trip for two people, including $400 on flights. It boosted her to Platinum Medallion status.

“When I booked the tickets, it felt extremely frivolous," she says. “But on the trip itself, I tried to just focus on having fun in a new destination."

To earn the same level of status this year, Cox says she opened a new Delta-branded credit card for her business instead.

Write to Jacob Passy at jacob.passy@wsj.com