So I am currently purchasing/booking tickets and the Miles program are tempting for me.
Since at the airlines, you are definitely not anonymous as both the airport security, airlines and embassies are positively identifying you. Surveillance cameras are all over the place so there is no privacy.
I am pretty sure the airline companies are selling my data anyway (maybe depending on the country, this could be different?).
The question is, what am I losing if I apply for a Miles program under my real name?
Good question. like you, I’m struggling to see any specific ways in which privacy would be worse than it already is considering how un-private air travel already is. It seems to me that all the ways in which a frequent flier program would be un-private are ways in which air travel is already not private.
The only downside that I can think of is that sometimes these companies have “We can contact you through WhatsApp” in their T&C for loyalty accounts, but barring that, I don’t see any extra privacy breach because you used their loyalty program.
Every program you sign up for means an additional database your data is now being stored in, increasing your risk of being impacted by data breaches, etc.
This isn’t passing judgement, you might deem this additional risk to be perfectly reasonable, and that would be a valid opinion. It’s just important to remember that data merely existingalways has inherent privacy implications regardless of how it’s used and who’s using it.
edit: personally, my credit card gives me 4X miles for money I spend on servers and software, which happens to be a very large spend category for me, so I’m taking that risk
Miles and just miles? Not so much. If you sign up for their dining program, the shopping web site, and other business integrations that give you miles, yeah, data moves and profiles get built.
Example: I think Delta is still associated with Starbucks, with loading US$25 on your card did or still does get you some miles.
