The Cost of Your Reward Flight Has Soared—Unless You’re Flying American Airlines | Global News Avenue

Since the pandemic, the cost of domestic reward flights has nothing but rises – in American Airlines (American Airlines) (AAL), according to new research.

According to a report by IdeaWorksCompany, the average domestic economic flight price of six major U.S. airlines is nearly 12 points higher than inflation over this period.

The company’s survey evaluates the “most popular basic reward types in the United States” by Delta Airlines (Dahl), United Airlines (ual), Southwest Airlines (like), Alaska Air (Elke) and JetBlue Airways (jblu), found that the “reward returns” (the value spent on base fare per dollar) is about half the overall starting from 2025.

The report says that the average domestic economic incentive cost of flying has soared over the past six years. For example, in the Southwest, the average cost of free flights in 2019 was 7,367 miles, which now costs 18,673 miles, an increase of more than 150%. Delta (26%), JetBlue (25%) and Alaska (23%) also saw considerable jumps. Manchester United’s growth was more modest at 9%.

One exception: According to the report, the award redemption amount for domestic economic flights in the U.S. is 18,690 miles, 21% less than in 2019 (23,700). Travel agency owner Gary Leff said Americans use dynamic reward systems Viewed from the wingmeans “there are abundant cheap domestic coaching awards.”