by Scott Laird
Last updated: 3:05 PM ET, Fri February 20, 2026
Buy a ticket on most US-based airline these days, and you’re paying to be inundated with bank solicitations. They’re on the website, on the airport kiosks, in airport waiting areas and jet bridges, on beverage napkins and in seatback pockets. They’re in videos played before you can access the inflight entertainment, and on many airlines—just for good measure—the flight attendants further interrupt the entertainment at least once during the flight to paraphrase from a script about the credit cards before they walk through the cabin with applications.
They’ve gotten our attention in their little metal tubes, and they’ve turned around and sold it to the banks that pay their bills.
Delta Air Lines earned $7.4 billion from their American Express partnership in 2024, from selling the miles earned on their co-branded American Express cards, and from commissions paid for new credit card signups and other. If we simply subtract that $7.4 billion from the $61.6 billion in total revenue they reported for the same period, it clocks in at some $54.2 billion—some $1.4 billion less than the $55.6 billion they reported in expenses.
It's likely Delta would have been unprofitable without that bank partnership (they would have saved on advertising expense, but their total advertising expense was $438 million in 2024, and that included advertising not related to their Amex products).
It’s a similar story at American Airlines. The operating income they reported in 2024 was significantly less ($2.6 billion) than the amount they allocated to their AAdvantage partnership revenues of $6.1 billion. American lumped other partnerships into that total, but banks typically make up the lion’s share of partner revenues in an airline loyalty program.
United Airlines also included partner revenues in addition to Chase Bank in their figure of $2.9 billion, but with an operating income of $5 billion, it’s likely they would have made money in 2024 just flying airplanes, without hawking credit cards.
In addition to striking marketing partnerships, airlines and banks also exchange customer lists. Banks get member rolls from frequent flier programs they can send marketing communications to, and airlines get insights on card transactions at a cumulative level.
It’s all part of the loyalty game, which airlines like, because it means they don’t have to compete as vigorously on other things, like price or service quality.
When I was a travel agent in the early 2000’s, I once sat through a seminar with a Northwest Airlines sales manager in Minneapolis. They were remarkably forthcoming regarding their loyalty program. When airlines talk about their loyalty programs, they typically like to frame it in terms of what a good value they are for consumers. This sales rep, however, took a much different line (which probably ultimately didn’t earn them any favors with their bosses).
“We’ve found that our members will spend up to $100 more for an inferior itinerary if they’re a WorldPerks member,” they told the room.
If you were a WorldPerks member who lived in Milwaukee, for example, and wanted to fly to Florida, you’d suffer a connection in Minneapolis or Detroit even if there was another airline that flew the route you wanted nonstop and you would pay more to do it, because of your existing mileage investment with Northwest.
Incidentally, it’s that same notion of investment and sunk costs that keep people loyal to banks. Sure, another bank might offer slightly better terms, but it’s such a nuisance to unwind all the automated bill pays, direct deposits, stored cards in digital wallets, account numbers and passwords to switch. It keeps banks uncompetitive because they know their customers will stick around, and it keeps customers stuck in an unhappy fool’s bargain with a product they’re no longer satisfied with.
Airlines deploy their loyalty programs in a similar way with elite status tiers. Sure, you could go fly another airline with a competitive schedule and fare, but once you’d paid for the extra legroom seating and bag fees and upgrades that your loyalty status gets you for free, it’s not as equal anymore. And compromising your loyalty status with any one airline makes the experience on any of them worse (unless you’re a mega-flyer who can maintain status on multiple airlines at once).
In a sense, airlines are almost worse than banks. If you put your money in a bank, it’s still worth the face value. The bank might fiddle with the interest rates, or the fees, but the dollar in your account is still worth a dollar when you take it out.
Loyalty points, however, are an entirely different story. You pay for them indirectly, either by flying an airline or having activity with one of their partners, or even buying them outright, but they don’t hold their value the same way as currency. Imagine if you made a deposit into your bank account, but the bank had the unilateral right to determine how much your deposit is worth, how it can be spent, and what products you can buy with it.
Airlines do this all the time. If you were saving your miles to upgrade a paid ticket on Alaska Airlines, they ended that option. It’s been nearly twenty years since United started charging co-pays to upgrade some flights with miles, but at the time, it caused an uproar. Partnerships are also starting to dilute. Many airlines are making few—if any—premium cabin award seats available for partner redemptions on long-haul flights.
In turn, it feels as though almost every amenity airlines provide comes with a catch designed to monetize your attention and harvest your data to turn over to their bank partners, from offering free onboard Wi-Fi (only if you’re a member of their loyalty program) to actually reducing the number of miles earned unless you sign up for their credit card, like United announced on February 19.
Deep in the fine print of United’s most recent update was a curious disclaimer: “United is an airline and not a bank.”
They almost had us fooled.
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