frequent lender program
Disclaimer: This post summarizes and comments on a publicly available opinion essay and its reader comments. Facts and figures about specific companies are as reported in that essay and have not been independently verified. Everything else is my own opinion and interpretation. I have no affiliation with any airline or bank mentioned, and nothing here is financial or legal advice. In a New York Times guest essay, Mark Kahan, a former Spirit executive, argues that Spirit Airlines died partly because it couldn’t borrow the way its big rivals can. Big airlines sell miles to the banks behind their branded credit cards. Those card deals are so profitable for the banks that, by Kahan’s account, the banks lend to their airlines on easy terms and help keep them afloat in bad times. Spirit’s card was too small to earn that treatment, and in his telling its banks held money back instead. ...