Frequent flyers warned about sitting on mountain of unused miles

Liabilities tied to the five most valuable airline-loyalty programs in the US soared almost 12% to $27.5b last year, according to new analysis by LendingTree Inc.’s consumer-finance website ValuePenguin. Airlines looking to shore up their balance sheets could reduce the value of those rewards or reinstate policies that allow miles or points to expire, the firm warned. “Especially in a time where airlines have gone through such financial issues, it would be easy to see that they would look at some sort of devaluation of the miles and points as a way to make up a little bit of financial ground,” said Matt Schulz, LendingTree’s chief credit analyst. “I would suspect we would see something like that going forward.” Airlines are typically secretive about the earnings tied to their loyalty programs. For some, the sale of miles -- mostly to the large banks that issue their co-brand credit cards -- is a higher-earning activity than their traditional business of flying people from place to place. The five most valuable airline loyalty programs are Delta’s SkyMiles, American Airlines’s AAdvantage, United’s MileagePlus, Southwest’s Rapid Rewards and JetBlue’s TrueBlue, according to the analysis.<br/>