Brian Kelly, The Points Guy, has created an empire dedicated to maximizing credit-card rewards and airline miles. What are they worth in a global pandemic — and why are they worth anything at all?

A flight attendant caught between various loves and worlds.

“A body is a body, but personal effects are a life.”

The Obama administration was supposed to fight corporate concentration. In the airline industry, at least, it didn’t work out that way.

For decades, airlines failed to turn a profit despite having a monopoly on the sky. This year they’re expected to make billions. Here’s why.

How airlines woo the rich.

Interviews with modern travelling salesmen. The article inspired Kirn’s novel Up in the Air.

What makes this a truly military culture, besides its overwhelming maleness, its air of emotional deprivation and the lousy rations, is its obsession with rank and hierarchy. Like jungle gorillas, business travelers always know where they stand versus the rest of the group. In this parallel universe of upgrade vouchers and priority-boarding privileges, everyone has a number and a position, and who gets that open aisle seat in first class means even more on the road then who earns what.