As the airline industry continues to remake itself, prognosticating about its future has never been riskier. But one thing seems certain: In the history of frequent-flyer programs, 2015 will go down as a watershed year, the most important since American Airlines forever altered the booking process by introducing AAdvantage in 1981. This year, for better or worse, two major network carriers initiated a game-changer by shifting from mileage-based to price-based awards.

The changes have been at once both gradual and transitional. In February 2014, Delta Air Lines announced an overhaul of its SkyMiles program, effective Jan. 1 of this year. This was followed in June 2014 by United Airlines revamping its MileagePlus program, effective on March 1 this year. In both cases, members earn between five and 11 miles per dollar spent via a sliding scale based on program status, rather than earning by miles flown.

As for the third member of the “Big Three,” in December 2014 American Airlines announced more modest tweaks to AAdvantage, offering bonus mileage for certain bookings, such as first- and business-class tickets. But since its merger with US Airways isn’t fully implemented yet, several experts assert integration must occur before AAdvantage is overhauled. Meanwhile, JetBlue, Southwest and Virgin America award elite status based on dollars spent.

So what spurred Delta and United? Dr. Eric Chiang, a Global Traveler Globility Board member and graduate director of instructional technology, Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Fla., summarized: “A revenuebased model is much more valuable for the airline. One, it rewards those who spend the most. Two, it prevents travelers from gaming the system, such as purposely flying longer routes or greater number of connections to maximize miles. And three, the expense of the program is more predictable since it would be correlated with revenues.”

The changes come as airlines have become rabid about cost control “discipline.” There are about 300 million members enrolled in U.S. airline loyalty programs (nearly the population of the United States), and about 7 percent of all miles flown are via awards. But the fight for redemption has never been harder, even among elites. The industry’s unparalleled consolidation since 2001 melded members of eight major programs — including those from TWA, America West, Northwest, Continental and US Airways — into just three: AAdvantage, SkyMiles and MileagePlus.

Another key but under-reported dynamic is that planes are fuller than they’ve ever been; in 2014, passenger load factors on U.S. airlines reached 83.4 percent, an average not seen since the era of troop carriers during World War II. For contrast, average annual loads remained in the 50s and 60s throughout the 20th century. This unprecedented crowding of cabins in recent years negatively affects members’ abilities to secure both upgrades and trips. It’s a challenging time for the rules to be rewritten.

In theory, this shift seems to automatically benefit business travelers. Tim Winship, publisher, FrequentFlier.com, summed it up: “By the airlines’ own reckoning, revenue-based programs were designed to reward the companies’ most profitable customers, albeit at the expense — and here the airlines have been less forthright — of flyers who make more modest contributions to the bottom line. The most and least profitable customer categories map pretty tidily onto those of business and leisure travelers. The former travel more frequently and purchase higher-priced tickets, while the latter travel less frequently and purchase cheaper tickets.”

As always, the devil is in the details, and much of the initial reaction was pessimistic. Mileage expert Brian Kelly, founder and CEO, ThePointsGuy.com, referred to Delta’s “negative” SkyMiles changes by stating, “[I]n my opinion, they’re all going to be bad news for most Delta flyers.” He calculated general members would earn miles at 20 cents each, “a terrible value.”

The changes also revealed rifts between business travelers and the organizations paying for those fares. In March 2014, one month after Delta’s initial announcement, the Radnor, Pa.- based Business Travel Coalition surveyed 2,000 travel managers and found the following: 84 percent believed the changes would “result in higher prices paid for their organizations”; 95 percent were concerned “overall travel cost-control will become more difficult to achieve”; and 82 percent felt “travel policy will become more difficult to maintain adherence to.”

BTC chairman Kevin Mitchell stated, “Airlines will no doubt secure higher yields and revenues from the vast number of less frequent business travelers for whom new incentives to earn valuable perks will be compelling.”

Even before implementation, the BTC survey underscored the new rules potentially could exacerbate conflicts between corporate buyers and their employees. One respondent noted, “For corporations that allow employees to maintain points for personal use, this will conflict with their policies and efforts to get travelers to book seven to 14 days in advance to get lower fares.” Another was more blunt: “Airlines continue to find a way to pick away at the managed corporate travel program. The starting trend of basing the miles accrued (i.e., status) on fare paid will incentivize travelers to book closer to departure and most likely result in higher fares.” One travel manager who requested anonymity told GT, “Business travelers should realize that if they’re [intentionally] paying more for flights, eventually we’ll know about it. And eventually that affects travel budgets.”

In March, PricewaterhouseCoopers issued the report, “The future of frequent flyer programs: Will you win or lose?” identifying the winners and losers for spend-based programs. According to the report, those likely to fare better are premium-fare passengers, last-minute travelers, business travelers, short-distance travelers and those with direct itineraries. On the other hand, passengers making advance purchases, price-sensitive customers, long-distance travelers and those with layover itineraries will likely fare worse. Jonathan Kletzel, the report’s author and the company’s U.S. transportation and logistics leader, acknowledged the categories are not absolute: “You will always be able to find exception cases, but they will be a fairly limited number.”

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Recently we asked the GT Globility Board to evaluate the revenue-based model, and the range of responses underscores the multifaceted pros and cons. For example, Dr. Eric Chiang noted, “The new price-based award system is indeed harmful to those who fly long-haul international flights in discounted economy class.”

Celeste Linhard, Western region sales manager, Super Bakery Inc., observed, “With fares still on the rise, I think many will benefit from this new rewards program — I’m not going to worry about it. To me the premier status is still more important.”

Mark Leininger, project manager, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, suggested, “Why don’t I just travel well when my firm is reimbursed, and opt to purchase the things I want when I fly on my own dime? Leave my marketed cocoon of SkyTeam and open up to what all the other world airlines have to offer? Never to see a stand-by list with my name at the top again? It’s a scary thought!”

Sue Castorino, president, The Speaking Specialists, noted the double-edged sword quality of United’s new policy; she usually earns 3,000 miles between Chicago and Phoenix but recently received only 1,600 on that route. Conversely, a Chicago–Washington, D.C. itinerary that usually earns 1,400 miles recently generated 3,600. Her advice: “So the bottom line is if you really want the cumulative miles to pile up, dig deep [and spend more].”

It can’t be stressed enough that individual travel and booking patterns make all the difference. ThePointsGuy.com’s Kelly suggested only one silver lining with Delta: “Basically, if you’re flying short-haul/expensive flights you may earn a lot more miles than you would by simply flying the short distance. But for most travelers, you’re probably going to net a lot less miles.” Of course, some of the highest-yield short-haul flights on Delta’s route map are those on the business-centric Northeast Shuttle (New York to Boston, Washington, D.C. and Chicago) and West Coast Shuttle (Los Angeles to San Francisco), so that’s good news for many corporate travelers.

PricewaterhouseCoopers’s Kletzel would not comment on specific airlines matching Delta and United, but he said, “Legacy carriers have complex processes and systems which do not allow for them to just turn the ship on a dime and switch from distance-based to revenue-based. It is a gradual process that is difficult to execute during the best of conditions, let alone in an environment like a merger.”

Others believe significant program changes will come in stages. Mike Russo, a GT Globility Board member and retired U.S. Air Force officer, suggested, “I think it’s only a matter of time before the next big change comes, decoupling the elite status from the miles flown and instead awarding elite qualification miles based on airfare dollars.”

Winship of FrequentFlier.com called the move to spend-based schemes “inevitable,” and said it’s likely American and Alaska Airlines will follow suit. But he acknowledged an alternative scenario is possible. “Traditional mileage-based programs are still preferred by the great majority of travelers, if not necessarily by the small percentage of flyers who generate an outsized percentage of the airlines’ profits. If enough of the low-profit customers shift their allegiance from United and Delta to American, on the strength of American’s loyalty program, there may yet prove to be a future for mileage-based schemes.”

What about overseas? While much of the focus has been on Delta and United, program overhauls are occurring internationally as well. As Kletzel noted, “Many international carriers are already revenue-based.”

Winship added, “There’s no doubt many foreign carriers would adopt a spend-based model tomorrow if it were simply a matter of pushing an ‘Update’ button. But because today’s loyalty programs are so tightly woven into every aspect of airlines’ operations, conversions are expensive and time-consuming. The airlines that are most likely to invest the required resources are British Airways and Lufthansa in Europe, and Cathay Pacific and Singapore in Asia.”

Other travelers are finding innovative ways to fly internationally. One member of GT’s Globility Board noted that COPA Airlines of Panama, a member of Star Alliance, broke off from United’s MileagePlus and launched ConnectMiles, which is mileage-based and allows redemption on United and other Star partners. The member noted, “So this may be a more efficient way to collect miles flown for use on Star Alliance airlines than United’s own program.”

So how will this all play out? Time will tell, and although redemption rates vary from traveler to traveler, there are some helpful benchmarks. In May, IdeaWorksCompany — a Shorewood, Wis.-based travel marketing firm — announced the results of the Switchfly Reward Seat Availability Survey based on 7,640 booking queries at the websites of 25 global frequent-flyer programs. The six U.S. airlines included showed mixed results, in favor of low-cost carriers: Southwest led the pack with a 100 percent total availability score, followed by JetBlue (87.1 percent), Alaska (80 percent), United (75 percent), American (67.1 percent) and Delta (57.9 percent). Clearly, the Big Three have room for improvement.

A similar survey next year may well determine just how beneficial these program changes have been for most business travelers.