American Airlines court fight with Points Guy fails to settle

American Airlines Group Inc. is headed to trial with Points Guy next September to decide if frequent flyers have the right to manage their travel rewards from all carriers on a third-party website. 

The parties notified a federal judge in Fort Worth, Texas, on Wednesday their settlement talks had failed.

American sued Points Guy in January on claims the travel app, launched in September 2021, improperly profits from the carrier’s proprietary data and violated the AAdvantage program’s trademark and customer privacy rules. The airline seeks a court order requiring Points Guy to strip all links and any data captured and stored on the site associated with AAdvantage member accounts.

Started in mid-2010 as a blog offering tips on how to best accumulate and use airline miles, the Points Guy has expanded considerably in recent years with credit card reviews and travel news. The site claims to have 10 million unique visitors each month and more than 3 million followers on social media. The company said its miles-tracking app, launched a year ago, has been used to track over 18 billion points and miles.

The case is American Airlines Inc. v. Red Ventures LLC, 22-cv-44, US District Court, Northern District of Texas (Fort Worth).