The Death of Loyalty, Part Two: Airlines Are Already on the Run

After my last article on how AI assistants will dismantle brand loyalty, many people asked me: “Okay, but what about airlines?” Here’s my answer — and it’s not pretty.

After my last piece on how Google’s Gemini AI assistant could quietly erase brand loyalty, my phone started buzzing. Airline execs. Loyalty managers. Consultants.
“Surely we’re immune, right?”

Let me be clear: you’re not.

In fact, you might be first.

Airline loyalty programs are the envy of almost every other industry — profitable, data-rich, habit-forming, and often more valuable than the airline’s core operations. They’ve survived mergers, bankruptcies, recessions, and low-cost carrier disruptions. But AI-powered disintermediation? That’s a whole new storm, and the first gusts are already here.

The Card-Linked Trojan Horse

Just last week, The Wise Marketer reported that Flying Blue+ — the loyalty program of Air France–KLM — launched a major card-linked offers capability powered by Valuedynamx. The promise? Earn more miles on everyday purchases, no scanning or logging in required.

Sounds harmless. Innovative, even. But I’ve seen this play before.

Once the loyalty experience moves into someone else’s app — the bank’s, the credit card’s, or soon the AI assistant’s — you’ve surrendered your daily engagement touchpoint. That little moment when the customer sees your brand, checks their progress, anticipates the next reward? Gone. And the entity replacing you won’t care if they fly Air France or Lufthansa — only who’s cheapest, fastest, or most convenient right now.

Aeroplan’s Revenue-Based Shift

Then there’s Air Canada’s recent announcement that starting January 1, 2026, Aeroplan will award status and points based purely on spend, not distance.

From a revenue optimization standpoint, I get it. But from an engagement standpoint? You’ve just built a program that an AI can mimic perfectly (ie. “spend X, earn Y”) without the customer ever setting foot in your app.

When your value proposition is nothing but math, you’ve made yourself entirely portable. And portability is the first step toward invisibility.

The “Invisible Loyalty” Trap

Airline loyalty isn’t just about spreadsheets and accrual charts. It’s about rituals, anticipation, and identity:

• Checking your tier tracker before a trip.

• Unlocking a surprise lounge pass.

• Hitting a mileage goal with one last mileage run before year-end.

These moments create emotional hooks. Remove them — or worse, outsource them — and you strip away the connective tissue that keeps customers loyal to you, not just to “air travel.”

The AI won’t care about your brand’s story, your cabin interiors, or your decades of heritage. It will care about the optimization matrix it’s running in the background — and it will recommend whatever fits best in that moment, even if it’s not you.

What Airlines Must Do to Survive

If you want to stay in the customer’s life, not just in their travel history, you need to fight for your own interface.

1. Own the emotional touchpoints. Keep tier tracking, milestone celebrations, and experiential perks inside your channels.

2. Gamify beyond the accrual table. Create missions, seasonal challenges, and personal journeys that AI can’t easily scrape or replicate.

3. Build loyalty walls. Exclusive events, surprise upgrades, and premium content that require direct brand engagement.

4. Tell a personal story. Use your customer data to create arcs, versus just offers, that make members feel part of something bigger than themselves.

This Is the Boarding Call for AI Takeover

The danger here isn’t theoretical. The move toward card-linked offers, revenue-based earning, and frictionless accrual is building a runway for AI to taxi right into the heart of your customer relationships.

The big question is: will you be standing at the gate when your customers board that AI-powered competitor flight… or will you already be locked out of the terminal trying to figure how to get inside?

You still have time to keep your seat. But not much.