Airline mileage collectors would gain new protections against points devaluations under a Senate bill that Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin re-introduced Thursday, calling for more oversight of airlines’ loyalty programs.
The “Protect Your Points Act” would require airlines to offer one year notice of any planned devaluation of their currency or changes to their programs’ terms of service. It would also prevent airline miles from expiring, a change that several airlines have already adopted.
The measure would give three agencies – the Department of Transportation, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission – “explicit authority to ensure that airlines do not bait and switch consumers by advertising an enticing rewards program, only to downgrade points or miles value without notice,” Durbin said in a Thursday news release.
Airlines for America, the U.S. carriers’ trade association, had no comment Thursday on the legislation.
The group says that 31 million Americans carry airline-branded cards, with 57% of airline points, also referred to as miles, accrued in 2023 through credit card spending.
If enacted, the bill would require increased transparency from airlines about their programs, the senator said. Durbin first introduced the bill in September 2024.
“Without adequate oversight, airlines are taking advantage of their customers by offering grandiose rewards, only to change the terms and conditions without consumers’ knowledge,” Durbin said in the release.
Durbin, 81, isn’t running for re-election and will retire from the Senate early next year. The legislation has no co-sponsor or House companion, a Durbin spokesperson said.
U.S. airlines have largely abandoned fixed point redemption tables for various tickets in favor of dynamically pricing awards. As a result, redemption levels and seat availability for an award ticket often varies dramatically based on demand, cabin class, seasonality and other factors.
The bill would also require airlines to display the financial value of a point or mile, updated in real-time, to allow consumers to more easily compare different currencies’ values. They also could not charge a fee to redeem miles, under the bill.
For several years, the large U.S. carriers’ loyalty programs – funded by the sale of points to their credit card bank partners for billions of dollars – have been far more lucrative to airlines than their business of flying passengers.
Delta Air Lines, for example, collected $8.2 billion last year from its card relationship with American Express, while other U.S. carriers also reaped billions of dollars from their bank partners.
The senator has invoked the profitability of the card programs in tangling previously with airlines over his efforts to curb card interchange fees. The airline industry has argued that his co-sponsored Credit Card Competition Act would damage the carriers’ loyalty programs by draining them of swipe-fee revenues.
Airlines for America has opposed that measure in Congress for several years and hosts a loyalty program information page it dubs “protect our points.”