Rumors growing louder, new ITA Airways credit cards from American Express coming soon
Italian frequent flyers have been orphans, since the end of Alitalia, of a credit card that allows them to accumulate points [...]
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Italian frequent flyers are orphans, since the end of Alitalia, of a credit card that allows you to accumulate points with your daily spending in the ITA Airway's Flying loyalty programs. This would seem like a small matter, but it is not at all the case since these partnerships allow airlines to cash in fresh money and settle the bond with the traveler.
How airline credit cards work
Obviously, it is not the carriers that turn into financial operators, arrangements are simply made between the bank/financial institution and individual carriers. The issuer of these cards buys loyalty program points from the carrier, points that are then given away to cardholders based on daily use of the cards.
For carriers and their respective loyalty programs. this practice is a real golden goose, both in terms of marketing and indirect advertising and in economic terms: the points sold bring many millions of euros into the companies' coffers. And given that ITA Airways, waiting to close the sale, Needs fresh money to get through the winter, this agreement could bring oxygen to the company's coffers.
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With the end of Alitalia, American Express has suspended the issuance of new cards and old cardholders allowed to accumulate Membership Rewards points instead of Millemiglia points. There are other cards in Italy that allow you to earn miles through daily spending. For example, there are. Unicredit's Lufthansa-branded cards., Mooncard allows you to accumulate Flying Blue points. Instead, the two credit cards, issued by Deutsche Bank, disappeared, that allowed them to collect Millemiglia points.
In recent years, Italy has also said goodbye to the British Airways credit cards, which were issued by Agos. And to those linked to Hilton Honors, issued by Unicredit.
ITA Airways and American Express
A series of promotions have been launched in recent months., some related to former owners. Like free tickets to fly around the world and others related to spending in ITA Airways ticketing done always through Amex cards.
The characteristics of ITA Airways credit cards.
Impossible to know what the cards will be and what benefits they will give to cardholders, what is certain is that they will allow daily spending to be turned directly into points from the Volare loyalty program, points that can then be used to book award tickets with the national airline.
Key features include. generally these cards give away status and/or simplify renewal in subsequent years. In addition to this each card has its own unique features. Alitalia's old Green Card gave miles back, that is, it would return a percentage of the miles spent to book an award ticket.
The other feature that makes these cards very attractive has always been the issuance of the voucher that, in effect, gave away a companion prize ticket for any destination and thus allowed two tickets for the price of one.
360-degree partnerships
If these rumors are confirmed, it is obvious to expect collaboration on multiple fronts. For example, for holders of American Express Centurion, the most exclusive of credit cards, Winged Arrow Plus status was provided, logical to expect that these customers would be granted the Executive status, in Flying.
Similarly, it will be normal to see activated the possibility of Turn Membership Rewards points into Volare points, although here first it will be necessary Have clarity on how to book award tickets in ITA's program since to date it is still impossible to.
