We’ve seen airlines try to pivot their credit cards lately and that’s pretty good news.
To be abundantly clear, there’s always been a big difference between having an airline credit card, like a Delta SkyMiles American Express, and a flexible bank card, like an American Express Gold Card. Same for a Chase United Card and a Chase Sapphire Card, or a American Airlines Citi Card versus a Citi Premier Card.
In each case, the former only earns points with one airline while the latter earns “flexible” points, which can become the points of many different airlines, often including the former.
The reason most people care about airline cards is that they typically bring “day of travel” benefits that the bank cards don’t, such as priority boarding, extra credit for earning points towards “elite status”, or a free checked bag, lounge access or other useful perks.
But — there’s one perk I find more useful than any other, and I’d love to see more airlines copy it.
British Airways Amex ‘Enhanced Availability’
In the UK, British Airways struck a deal with Amex where cardholders receive enhanced seat availability when they look to redeem an earned companion voucher through the credit card, which can either cover the points for a second person, or be used to halve the number of points needed for one.
What does enhanced availability mean? It’s pretty simple, cool and powerful. It means that if a British Airways Executive Club member who has the BA Amex and is using a voucher runs a search for a seat using their Avios points, they’ll see significantly more availability than everyone else.
How much more? On a recent trip to New York, my search went from four seats available all day across – like one scattered across all flights for a standard searcher — to more than 4 seats on most British Airways flights all day, giving me more like 40 seats to choose from. On some dates it was the difference in no seats at all, and many seats.
For my specific need, it was the unlock for enough seats on a singular flight to book four people.
A Different Co-Brand Strategy
Most US airline credit cards have focused on the day of travel experience rather than really meaningful access to redeeming points, but that’s changing a bit. Very few offer truly impactful additional availability to cardmembers, with the exception of the United Cards from Chase.
United has built in additional availability for cardholders and it’s been a great way to leap frog others. Delta instead offers a discount on the points needed for SkyMiles cardholders, but the 15% discount hardly offsets points prices which typically 2x or 3x the competition. American, oddly, has done almost nothing to help members redeem points with their co-branded cards.
What I love about additional seating inventory with points being released to cardmembers is that it’s an uber compelling way to actually hone loyalty and create an emotional win for someone. Sure, a free checked bag from an American Airlines card is nice, but I don’t often check bags.
Making a trip possible for my family that would not otherwise have been possible had I not been a cardholder, that’s deep. Given economics of credit cards in the UK, the BA card doesn’t provide as many day of travel benefits as most US airline cards, yet I still value this perk over all others available.
Enhanced Inventory: Talk Nerdy To Me
If you’re looking for that extra mile of knowledge, knowing how additional inventory is created is kind of cool. The simplest place to start is that there’s often some level of a relationship between seats sold for cash and seats made available with points.
In any given cabin, airlines have lots of one letter codes to signify a selling class, which means the type of ticket, like basic economy advanced purchase, basic economy non advanced, flexible economy, etc. Each of these will have a letter like S, T or Y to signify what the person is buying and what’s included.
Some airlines, like the example of the British Airways enhanced inventory, means that Amex cardholders get access to an actual cash ticket fare bucket, which people using points otherwise wouldn’t get access to. In theory, if a discount business class ticket in “I” class is for sale, it’d be available with points to BA Amex cardholders.
This is a huge expansion of what’s available, since it’s drawing from a much wider pool.
Co-Branded Cards Need To Compete
Bank branded cards like a Capital One Venture X, Amex Gold, or Chase Sapphire Reserve offer fantastic flexibility when you use your points, since you can move them at will to so many airlines. With airline cards, you’re stuck with one currency, but other benefits can be valuable. If you don’t mind focusing on one currency, enhanced avail is really a phenomenal draw.
For my needs, where wide date flexibility is often not an option now that I have kids in school, this co-branded credit card benefit is really hard to beat and one I’d love to see other airlines try to copy.
