Banker Bot to the rescue

Skift: It used to be that saving up 25,000 award miles almost guaranteed a passenger a free domestic plane ticket.
In an era of stingier loyalty programs and fewer cheap award seats though, it’s getting extremely difficult to put those 25,000 miles to good use. As a result, some passengers have turned to external help to find their ideal award tickets.

Award booking services have been around for years, but a more active points economy and an increasingly complex airline industry have slowly put them back in the spotlight.
The points economy has been driven on the supply side primarily by points-based credit cards and the big banks behind them. With a new points-backed product or promotion launching every week, consumers are constantly sold on a variety of credit cards that promise enormous signup bonuses and a continuous stream of inbound points based on spend.

We need a new company to handle all the frequent flyer miles.  Then let Banker Bot manage savings and loan rates on the frequent flyer points while watching flight congestion. Intelligent banker bot can keep flights optimally filled and waiting lines small. If airlines get freaked, they have the option of buying and selling them on the open market. Aitline executives and their staff should be capable of making the trade between holding flyer points and booking passengers.

Skift is tracking and reporting on the new complementary money in the travel industry. Here is part of their work:

Executive Summary

Loyalty marketing is a multi-billion dollar revenue stream for the travel industry and the programs, as measured in terms of total number of enrollments, are more popular than ever. But changes to the industry landscape and changes in consumer behavior have many observers questioning if they still serve their original purpose: building connections with customers. This question is all the more urgent as new technology tools give travelers access to better information about their travel experience, opening up more information about everything from prices to customer reviews than ever before. This information is also creating new learnings for travel marketers as well, who are gaining more ability to selectively personalize the travel experience and identify pain points as they happen.
While the “points for rewards” loyalty paradigm still rules, there are plenty of new loyalty strategies that are challenging this model. A tidal wave of data, coming from customer mobile phones, social media and digital behavior on booking websites offers new opportunities to better personalize services, surprise and satisfy customers. Meanwhile, this huge wealth of information is also forcing many companies to rethink how and why they are deliver rewards to loyal customers, becoming more transparent and responsive in the process. Those companies that manage to incorporate this wealth of travel data into their loyalty offering stand to reap significant rewards, both in terms of customer perception, but also in terms of their bottom line.