South America’s LATAM, the combination of LAN and TAM, is moving their LATAM Pass frequent flyer program from kilometers to miles effective January 3.
Somehow this is supposed to “make your experience with us even better” by converting everything from kilometers to miles at a ratio of 1.6 to 1.
They became a revenue-based program for earning redeemable miles from flights and for status earning this past January. And they basically copied US programs on the mileage-earning side, adjusting up the number of points to reflect kilometers versus miles. Now they’ll be awarding 5 miles per dollar instead of 8 kilometers per dollar.
I understand Delta, United, and American continuing to call their currency miles for legacy reasons even though they’re earned based on spend rather than distance traveled.
However it seems strange to me to decide proactively to call your already-revenue based currency miles.
(HT: BoazHershkovich)
Lol, why not a 1.61 multiplier?
Not to mention that there’s Latam Pass (former LAN Pass) and Latam Fidelidade (former TAM Fidelidade)… I still cannot believe how awful this whole Lan + Tam integration has been.
Will they also adjust their SPG transfer amounts?
I always thought it odd the rest of the world (except LAN) used frequent flyer “miles”!
I still think airlines should call them “kickback points.”
Miles make as much sense as kilometers for flying purposes because conversion isn’t an issue – you’re not going to need to know how many meters your flight route is. It’s simply a question of 500 miles or 800 kilometers.
Beside Brazilian carriers I believe that the Chinese carriers still use kilometers instead of miles. Maybe they’ll start to convert over to miles soon.