It might be a strange manner to celebrate its birthday: On May 01, 43 years after having launched its – and as such the first ever – Frequent Flyer program, American Airlines will start to use the program as weapon of its distribution strategy – copying something that has widely been practiced in the hospitality industry since ever: In order to earn AAdvantage miles and status points for American Airlines flights, one needs to book directly through American Airlines or through “preferred” travel agencies, unless your company also participates in the Corporate Loyalty Program AAdvantage Business or has any corporate agreement with American Airlines. The list of preferred agencies will change every six months and is determined in function of the share of NDC bookings the agency realises with American Airlines. These New Distribution Capabilities allow agencies notably to sell ancillary services. It looks though that this restriction can be circumvented by simply crediting miles to one of American’s numerous partner programs.

On June 01, Etihad will revamp its Etihad Guest program, implementing a range of improvements and downgrades, making it difficult to judge in general about the changes. Whether you are better off or not really depends on how you use the program. The most surprising change is though certainly that tier members will no longer have automatic access to lounges, but need to select that benefit (=trade off against other benefits) as part of their new choice benefits. Some award flights become cheaper, including in Business Class, but you should definitely avoid changing your plans: Refunding award flights will cost you at least 25% of the miles used, but goes up to 75% if you do so within 7 days of travel. You should also note that you will need a flight activity every 18 months (including on partners) rather than any program activity as until now in order to keep your miles alive.

Given the current tendency of program devaluations, we had to fear the worst when ANA announced an adjustment of award levels in its ANA Mileage Club as of April 18 both for ANA and partner airlines flights, after not having touched the award levels for many years. After all, the program is one of the more rewarding ones in Star Alliance. But things turned out to be not so catastrophic. Most changes apply to long-haul flights in Business and First Class only, but most remain at reasonable levels. The strongest hit of 50% concerns flights between Europe and the Middle East or Africa. And the best value of the program is definitely still with Economy Class flights to Oceania, running, for example, at only 75,000 and 80,000 miles roundtrip from North America and Europe respectively.

The main issue with Virgin Atlantic’s Flying Club are certainly not the award levels as such (although they got a bit too expensive in Business Class as well), but the horrendous surcharges on award tickets, which basically kill the attractiveness of the program. As such, the current promotion for a 50% reduction on the mileage portion of all Virgin Atlantic award flights to the US is nice and should be used if possible, but doesn’t address the main issue of the program. Flights under this offer need to be booked by March 20 and travel needs to be completed by June 30.

Finnair has now acomplished the shift of its program Finnair Plus to the Avios currency, used notably as well by British Airways and Qatar Airways. While the free transfer of points between Finnair Plus and other Avios-based programs will still take a couple of weeks to be put in place, it is now time to start to use the program in a more flexible manner. This obviously applies to Finnair flights, where you need to consider whether you are better off with the accrual rate of 6 miles/EUR under the Finnair Plus program or the traditional distance-based approach of partner programs. But the same logic is valid for non-air activities: While you get, as example for such optimisation potential, 500 miles for all rentals with Sixt in the Qatar Airways program, Finnair Plus members get either 350 or 700 miles depending on the car category. And once you are ready to redeem, you need to check which award model lets you get your desired flight for the cheapest price and move your points accordingly. For instance, redeeming an Economy roundtrip flight between Helsinki and Paris on Finnair would cost 26,000 Avios to a Finnair Plus member, but “only” between 22,000 and 23,000 for members of the programs of British Airways, Iberia or Qatar Airways.

With hardly any advance notice and without any official communication about it, Turkish Airlines will increase award levels in its Miles&Smiles program as of tomorrow, both on its own flights and on partner airlines. Not only is the increase rather unbelievable in most cases, but moreover, awards will now be priced on a sector basis. As a rough guideline, the former roundtrip award levels are now one-way award levels – even the Turkish Lira devaluates less… So while you pay today 75,000 miles for a roundtrip in Economy Class from Western Europe to Australia on Thai Airways, you will be charged tomorrow for the same flight 100,000 miles for the first flight to Bangkok and 170,000 miles for the flight from Bangkok to Australia. 270,000 miles vs. 75,000 miles. Definitely a strategy not every customer is likely to understand or support. The picture only looks a bit better – but far from acceptable – on Turkish Airlines direct flights. For instance, a Business Class roundtrip between Istanbul and North America increases “only” from 90,000 miles to 130,000 miles. The current promotion for double miles in Economy Class and triple miles in Business Class (bookings by March 24, travel by August 11) is only a very temporary relief in that situation…

It has probably already happened to all of us that we booked a non-refundable hotel stay and had to change our plans. Money lost and no miles credited as we didn’t actually stay at the hotel. Flying Blue is finally putting an end to that double punishment: When you now book a non-refundable stay over the Flying Blue hotel platform, you will be credited with your miles within four days of booking – even if ultimately you won’t realise your stay. Money lost will still applies in such cases, but at least sweetened by some miles credited.

Flying Blue is though currenty deserving your attention not only for hotel bookings, but also for car rentals: Renting a car from partner Enterprise by March 31 lets you earn double miles, what means 8 miles per EUR spent. Assuming a redemption value of 1 Euro cent per mile as minimum, you quickly understand the return of that promotion – which even increases if you manage to use your miles to get a better value out of them. If you have though already switched your SkyTeam program to Virgin Atlantic’s Flying Club, you can benefit of a similarly rewarding deal with Hertz: Booking by February 29 for rentals until May 31 lets you earn 10 miles per GBP spent.

Many major programs operate a secret tier level above the published ones – but keeping them really secret nowadays is certainly more difficult than 15 or 20 years ago. That’s why Air France KLM has chosen to make the “Ultimate” level in its Flying Blue program fully transparent, by publishing qualification criteria and benefits. To qualify, you require 900 status points solely on Air France and KLM flights per year. This corresponds, for instance, to 30 Business Class segments on long-haul flights between 3,500 and 5,000 miles or 450 domestic flights in Economy Class. The additional benefits are though not so impressive that you may want to make the stretch from the 300 points (on any SkyTeam carrier) required for the Platinum status: They consist notably of four one-cabin upgrade vouchers, lounge access for up to eight companions and the ability to gift Platinum status to somebody else.

If you are already ready for some beach holidays before May 20, IHG Hotes’ program IHG One Rewards has a rather compelling offer: For every four nights spent at participating all-inclusive Iberostar beach resorts, you are rewarded by 40,000 points. You can earn this bonus twice for a maximum of 80,000 points. If you are happy to use these points at mid-scale IHG properties such as Holiday Inns, this should give you easily four free nights, at least outside of the most expensive destinations. But with the dynamic award pricing IHG One Rewards applies, those 80,000 points can even take you further though if you use them in a smart manner, letting you literally earn bonus holidays with your main holidays.