I’ll interrupt your weekend scrolling with a little curated weekend scrolling for you. Today you can read about a behind-the-scenes perspective of Bilt promotions, Lufthansa’s struggle with Condor, Capital one vs influencers, and wine flying free.
Loyalty Program Basics – what it costs to run a loyalty currency
In this hobby, we become experts in the loyalty programs we seek to make use of, but we know very little about what’s behind the various decisions, promotions, and benefits we take advantage of. We’ll often joke that programs make silly decisions specifically to end up on our “What crazy thing” segment of the podcast for example. Richard Kerr (of Bilt) hopped on Reddit to give a bit of an inside look at the business-decision side of things, and particularly the balancing act it can be to keep the public happy while also making sure your business is profitable. As no surprise, he demonstrates how expensive it can be to run a promotion like a transfer bonus for example.
Condor & Lufthansa Feeder Flight Drama: Good News For Condor!
Condor & Lufthansa are Germany’s two largest airlines. (Condor happens to be the only airline that flies out of my little West Virginia town for a random once-a-day flight from WV to Charlotte, partnered with AA, but that’s somewhat irrelevant here.) In Ben’s post, we learn how Condor essentially relies on Lufthansa for “feeder traffic” at special rates while they otherwise essentially just service Lufthansa connections. And apparently the only reason Lufthansa cooperates with these special rates for the sake of Condor’s connectivity is because legally they’re required to. Kind of an anti-monopoly type of thing. In this article we read about how Lufthansa has been trying to get out of this arrangement, and how the European Commission essentially won’t let them. But the legal battle has been enough to cause Condor to start cutting transatlantic routes.
Capital One is being accused of using their Capital One Shopping browser extension to hijack commissions intended for content creators promoting products online. This is a very 2025 problem with an influencer accusing Capital One of somehow removing their tracking tack (which their referral income relies on) and replacing it with one of Capital One’s own tracking tags when a consumer with the Capital One browser extension reaches checkout.
Wine Flies Free™ on Alaska Airlines
Did you know that Alaska Airlines has an offer where you can fly home from a popular wine destination with a case of wine with no baggage costs for that case of wine? As I understand it, you have to be flying from one of the 32 participating airports and your case of wine has to have no more than 12 bottles of wine and must not exceed 50 pounds. Still, pretty generous.
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I’m genuinely interested in the Condor-American tie in. I didn’t know that Condor worked with any partners except Alaska and until Alaska changes their rule about only allowing one partner airline per booking they wouldn’t allow such a booking. Can you tell us anything else? I’d adore being able to book American and Condor on the same award.
Whoa! Condor flies domestically in the US? And from WV to CLT? Man, you never know.
Caroline meant Contour – with a “T”. It’s a small regional airline flying EAS routes.
Ok good, my first reaction was, that’s the weirdest 5th freedom route I ever heard of!