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Certainly surprising for many, the announcement came that Allegiant Air, based in Las Vegas, will acquire Sun Country Airlines, based in Minneapolis. This will create a force in the US market that cannot be underestimated, focussing on the leisure market.

As part of the merger, which should be completed by the end of the year, the two Frequent Flyer Programs Allways Rewards and Sun Country Rewards will also be combined. It will certainly be interesting to see what the product will look like, as the Allegiant program largely revolves around a co-branded credit card, while Sun Country takes a more traditional approach.

Given the constant devaluations of many other US programs, there is hope that the new airline will choose a different strategy here to gain more attention in the market!

Until January 17, an extraordinary auction is taking place in the Emirates Skywards program.

The program is auctioning seven Platinum cards with specific numbers, which grant the holder Platinum status for up to 20 years. The proceeds from the auction will be entirely donated to the Emirates Airline Foundation, which cares for children in need around the world.

The auction is now, of course, entering the hot phase, and currently, the lowest bid is at 325,000 AED, granting five years of Platinum status. To secure the 20-year Platinum level, a minimum offer of 1.5 million AED is required.

The question is hence simple – fly a lot for 20 years or pay a lot now?

The positive surprise of 2025 was perhaps Lufthansa, which did not misuse the switch to a dynamic rewards system at Miles & More for a price increase, as seen in other programs.

While prices in Business Class were partially raised, some reward flights in Economy Class have even become significantly cheaper, especially on short-haul routes.

That’s why the current promotion with Avis is certainly interesting: For reservations until January 31 (and rentals until April 30), you will receive 4,000 bonus miles for rentals of at least two days. With such a rental, you will hence receive enough miles for a round trip for four people from Frankfurt to Paris.

Luxair, which uses the Miles & More program on a co-branded basis, still sees the attractiveness of the program apparently more critical.

That’s why it has extended its own mini-program High Five, which runs in parallel to Miles & More, until April 30, 2027. And for regular Luxair customers, it is certainly one of the most attractive programs at all.

For every five bookings with Luxair within the last 12 months, you receive a voucher worth the cheapest of the five bookings. In the “elite” program – the highest level is reached with 20 bookings – the voucher value is increased by up to 30%.

Since bookings – and not flight segments – are considered for the promotion, one should ideally operate with one-way flights here.

The New Year will also start with some, perhaps interesting, news for frequent flyers.

In March, Air Serbia will launch its own program. So far, the company has used Etihad’s program, Etihad Guest, on a co-branded basis. How this partnership will develop remains to be seen.

In April, Air New Zealand will rename its program to Koru. Aside from a new top elite tier, this is likely more of a rebranding than a fundamental overhaul of the program.

And then we are also waiting for the full launch of Riyadh Air’s Sfeer program, which has already announced partnerships with Air France, KLM, Delta and Virgin Atlantic!

In the spring, Etihad announced 15 new destinations, from Atlanta to Algiers to Krabi, and encouraged Etihad Guest members to fly to all of them. The first three members to do so would receive 5, 3 and 1 million miles respectively.

The terms have been adjusted twice since then, but without a guarantee of really winning in spite of the efforts put into making the 15 destinations, the stakes were still too high for many.

But not for everyone. Etihad has now announced the three lucky winners.

The small catch – and where it starts to smell like outright fraud – is that the flights to Algiers, one of the 15 destinations, were never actually launched due to a political spat between Algiers and Abu Dhabi…

Subscriptions are gaining more and more popularity in the industry, as part of customer loyalty programs or independently.

Ryanair also introduced Ryanair Prime in the spring, and frequent flyers quickly calculated whether the annual fee was worth it for them compared to the savings offered. Of course, you should only commit to something like this if you are sure that you will ultimately come out on top.

But apparently, such a mindset was precisely what threw a wrench in Ryanair’s plans, which is why the program has already been discontinued. In absolute honesty, Ryanair explained in the original wording: “To date, we have signed up over 55,000 Prime members, generating over €4.4m in subscription fees. However, our Prime members have received over €6m in fare discounts, so this trial has cost more money than it generates.”

No comment necessary, right?

Starting from the 2026 qualification period, Hilton is simplifying the status attainment in its Hilton Honors program.

The thresholds for Gold and Diamond status are being lowered without cutting back on the benefits. At the same time, a new top tier, Diamond Reserve, is being introduced, where Hilton is introducing guaranteed benefits for the first time, which have long been standard in other hotel programs, such as confirmed upgrades or late check-outs.

It is also worth noting that as part of this change, rollover nights will be discontinued, meaning that additional nights above the required threshold for achieving or maintaining a status can no longer be credited to the following year.

Global Hotel Alliance has surpassed the mark of 50 participating brands – and with Rotana, there have been 51 since this month

To celebrate and encourage members to discover as many brands as possible, GHA Discovery has launched a promotion running until May 31. If you book stays of at least two nights at different brands by February 28, you will earn bonus points starting with the second brand, which can accumulate to 875 bonus points for ten different brands, worth 875 USD.

Since the alliance is more about luxury hotels, you should expect an average price of 200 USD per night, so total expenses of at least 4,000 USD for the highest bonus, whereby the 875 USD (in addition to the regular points) still look quite a good deal.

A nice side effect of the GHA Discovery program is that you can achieve elite status with the number of different brands – and you can reach the top Titanium status with just three of them!

Even almost four years after the Russian invasion, the will to resist in Ukraine remains unbroken, even though many things in everyday life – such as air travel and frequent flyer programs – no longer function as they used to.

But a new initiative from the Ukrainian state railways, which maintains a reliability under the current difficult conditions that is not found everywhere in Europe, also shows that the loyalty spirit still exists.

In four off-peak months in 2026, every Ukrainian can travel 3,000 kilometres free of charge on selected trains within Ukraine under the UZ-3000 project.

Surely, no one is envious that Ukrainians can easily get free rides, but there is a risk that they will be disappointed when they are flooded by Wizz Air, Ryanair & Co after the Russians leave, who have much in their offer, but no customer loyalty programs with free flights!

We still wish all Ukrainians to experience this disappointment in the New Year!