Airline loyalty program: how to win between flights
Resources · Airlines
An airline loyalty program earns value between flights when members earn and redeem miles in everyday life: with a card, with partners and at checkout. The largest programs make more selling miles to banks and retailers than from flying. This guide shows how six programs do it and what your airline can take.
Case study notes based on public information: none of these six programs is a Qurable client.
- 01
Selling miles
- Banks and cards
- Retailers
- 02
Frequency
- Missions
- Milestone rewards
- 03
Ancillaries
- Points plus cash
- Bags and seats
- 04
Data
- One profile
- Benefit per member
Six programs, public figures
None of these programs is a Qurable client. Each figure carries its source.
- $8.2Bpaid by American Express to Delta in 2025Delta 2025 10-K
- $6.2Bin partner cash to AAdvantage in 2025American 2025 10-K
- 80%+of IAG's loyalty revenue comes from partnersSkift, 06/25/2026
- 56MLATAM Pass membersPauta, 07/30/2026
Key takeaways
- The largest airline programs make more selling miles to banks and retailers than from flying: American Express paid Delta $8.2 billion in 2025.
- The four levers are selling miles to partners, frequency between flights, ancillaries with points plus cash and member data.
- A mid-sized airline can switch them on in stages over its current program, with no migration and without becoming an issuer.
The four levers
What the largest programs do, and how your airline does it.
Each lever with a public example and how it is switched on with Qurable over your core and your PSS. Sources are under the table.
| In the largest programs | With Qurable | |
|---|---|---|
| Selling miles to partners | 80%+ of IAG's loyalty revenue comes from partners buying Avios; AAdvantage received $6.2B in partner cash in 2025 | Partners connected through a single API to buy, award and redeem miles, reconciled in the ledger |
| Your own card | American Express paid Delta $8.2B in 2025 for the co-branded card | A wallet and a card with your brand; Qurable handles issuance, processing and compliance |
| Frequency between flights | Emirates awards miles at local merchants with up to 5 linked cards; AAdvantage lets members choose rewards at each milestone | Partner missions and milestone rewards of choice; a new game launches in less than a week |
| Ancillaries | Aeroméxico Rewards pays for bags and seats with points; Emirates offers Cash+Miles | Points plus cash at checkout: authorize, capture and reverse, decided in ~150 ms |
| Data and personalization | Member profiles within each ecosystem | One profile with flights, partner purchases and redemptions; the engine picks the benefit for each member and the copilot drafts campaigns with approval |
Sources: Delta, 2025 Form 10-K · American Airlines, 2025 Form 10-K · Skift, 06/25/2026 · Emirates, Skywards Everyday (accessed 10/15/2026) · American Airlines, Loyalty Point Rewards (accessed 10/15/2026) · Aviación al Día, Aeroméxico Rewards (2023)
The brands cited belong to their owners and none of these programs is a Qurable client. This page uses only public information available as of October 15, 2026.
Six programs
How each program earns and what your airline can take.
A summary per program. Each one has its own page with figures, sources and how to build each piece.
| Aspect | Detail |
|---|---|
| How it earns | The card is the engine: $8.2B in 2025; Delta expects about $10B a year. |
| What members get | Tiers are earned by spending. Silver from 5,000 MQDs; Diamond from 28,000. |
| What your airline can take | Your own card, without being an issuer; Status that counts off the plane; Points plus cash at checkout. |
| How it earns | Revenue comes from outside: $6.2B in partner cash in 2025. |
| What members get | Everything counts toward status. Milestones from 15,000 to 5 million Loyalty Points. |
| What your airline can take | Partners through a single API; Milestone rewards of choice; Miles on card purchases. |
| How it earns | Miles in everyday life: Up to 5 linked cards per member. |
| What members get | Miles and cash in one payment. Available on the Emirates site. |
| What your airline can take | Miles at merchants in your market; Points plus cash at checkout; One program for several brands. |
| How it earns | Avios across airlines: Valued at $10,345M, the world's 4th most valuable program. |
| What members get | The margin is in banks. American Express and JPMorgan Chase renewed in 2025. |
| What your airline can take | Selling points to banks; One program for several brands; Spend-based status. |
| How it earns | A program that grows every day: More than 10 million passengers a year fly on miles. |
| What members get | Long-term alliances. More than 2 million upgrade requests in 2025. |
| What your airline can take | Partners through a single API; Upgrades and ancillaries with miles; A liability finance can audit. |
| How it earns | Two issuing banks: More than 395,000 cardholders. |
| What members get | The program comes home. Aeroméxico listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2025. |
| What your airline can take | Your own card, without being an issuer; Points for ancillaries; Program control and security. |
Program guides
The business model of each program, in detail.
How it earns, what your airline can take and how to build it with Qurable, with dated public sources.
Delta
Delta SkyMiles
American Express paid Delta $8.2 billion in 2025 for the co-branded card, and Delta expects to reach about $10 billion a year.
- What to take
- Your own card, without being an issuer.
American Airlines
American AAdvantage
American AAdvantage received $6.2 billion in partner cash in 2025, with more than 1,000 non-flight partners.
- What to take
- Partners through a single API.
Emirates
Emirates Skywards
Emirates Skywards has more than 38 million members and adds about 78,000 a week.
- What to take
- Miles at merchants in your market.
IAG
Iberia Club and Avios
IAG Loyalty made €548 million in operating profit in 2025; more than 80% of its revenue comes from partners buying Avios.
- What to take
- Selling points to banks.
LATAM
LATAM Pass
LATAM Pass has 56 million members, adds more than 11,000 a day and aims for 100 million by 2030.
- What to take
- Partners through a single API.
Aeroméxico
Aeroméxico Rewards
Aeroméxico Rewards had 13.3 million members as of June 2025 and more than 395,000 co-branded cardholders.
- What to take
- Your own card, without being an issuer.
How to start
Three scenarios, one after the other.
Qurable connects to your program core and your PSS with REST APIs, a sandbox and webhooks. Each scenario goes live and is measured before the next one.
1. Checkout and engagement
Points plus cash for tickets and ancillaries, and missions between flights.
Loyalty at the POS and checkout2. Partner ecosystem
Banks, hotels, car rentals and retailers connected through a single API to award and redeem miles.
Loyalty coalition3. Wallet and your own card
A card with your brand; Qurable handles issuance, processing and compliance.
Airline loyalty
Questions
What people ask about airline programs.
Short answers for airline loyalty, finance and technology teams.
Mostly by selling miles to partners: banks that award them with their card and retailers that reward their customers. American Express paid Delta $8.2 billion in 2025, and more than 80% of IAG's loyalty revenue comes from partners buying Avios.
With miles on everyday partner purchases, missions and milestone rewards where members pick the prize, and points plus cash at checkout so the balance gets used before a full award ticket.
No. With Qurable the airline gets a wallet and a card with its brand, and Qurable handles issuance, processing and compliance.
No. Qurable works as a layer on top of the program core and the PSS. You start with checkout and engagement, add partners, then the wallet and the card, in stages.
SKY Airline runs its SKY Plus program on Qurable, with real-time, two-way Sabre integration: more than 1.7 million active members, 210,000 flights processed per month and more than 70 partnerships.
Last reviewed
Further reading
Keep reading about airline loyalty.
The industry page, the case of an airline on Qurable and the economics of a coalition.
- IndustryAirline loyalty
Points plus cash, partners, missions and your own card on your program.
- CaseSKY Plus, by SKY Airline
1.7M+ active members and 70+ partnerships on Qurable.
- ResourceCoalition loyalty economics
Who pays, who earns and how partners reconcile.
- ModuleLoyalty coalition
Partners awarding and redeeming points through one integration.
Switch the levers on in your program.
In a 30-minute technical session we show you two flows in the sandbox: points plus cash at checkout and a partner crediting miles.