By now, all the largest airlines and hotels have mature credit card portfolios. Delta Air Lines, for example, had upward of 7.5 million cardholders in 2023, per View from the Wing. But even airlines with smaller US footprints have gotten in on the action. Low-cost carrier Breeze, founded in 2021, launched a co-brand in partnership with Barclays in March 2024.

Co-brand cards make up a large share of issuers’ volume. As of 2023, about 21% of American Express (Amex) network volume came from co-brand (both travel and non-travel) cards, per our estimates. A full 10% came from Delta alone. Similarly, roughly 16% of Citi’s volume came from its co-brand cards, including those with American Airlines. All that volume means valuable interchange revenues—and interest payments—for issuers.

Hotel and airline credit cards also attract far more spending than other co-brands. Hotel- or airline-affiliated cardholders spend $1,555 a month on average, versus $1,181 for retail co-brand cardholders, per a March 2024 PYMNTS Intelligence and Elan Credit Card survey. This largely owes to their historical popularity among wealthier consumers and frequent fliers coupled with the big-ticket nature of many flights and hotel bookings.

They can be incredibly lucrative for brands, too. Southwest Airlines earned $896 million in revenues from its loyalty program in Q3 2024—the overwhelming majority of which can be attributed to its Visa co-brand cards. That’s 13% of Southwest’s total revenues. And loyalty revenues for Choice, Wyndham, Marriott, Hilton, and Hyatt surged 11% YoY in 2023 to a record $1.1 billion, per CBRE.

Read the full report.