some airlines have already done this, having fully owned subsidiaries. consider Lufthansa and their "Miles and More" subsidiary. that said, I doubt airlines wi

some airlines have already done this, having fully owned subsidiaries. consider Lufthansa and their "Miles and More" subsidiary. that said, I doubt airlines will ever fully relinquish control over their loyalty programs - they are too critical to the core business and offer a 'secret sauce' of differentiation to what is an otherwise commoditized product (i.e. flying from point A to B).