- Key insight: A bill offered by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., would give the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Department of Transportation and Federal Trade Commission authority to police airline-branded credit cards and airline rewards schemes.
- What's at stake: Airlines and credit card companies have found co-branded airline rewards cards highly lucrative.
- Forward look: The legislation isn't likely to pass before Durbin — the long-serving Democratic minority whip — departs the Senate at the end of the 119th Congress, but it comes as Congress has shown growing interest in clamping down on credit cards ahead of an affordability-centered midterm election.
WASHINGTON — Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., has reintroduced a bill that would put more oversight on credit cards' airline points.
While the bill has little chance of passing before Durbin's departure from Congress at the beginning of next year, it does add another variable to affordability rhetoric ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. Both parties are trying to bolster their credibility on economic issues as Americans fight higher gas prices and other economic anxieties, and credit cards have been an attractive target for both
The Durbin bill would give the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Department of Transportation and Federal Trade Commission authority to police how airlines portray credit card points and their terms. The agencies could, for example, ban airlines and their co-branded credit cards from making changes at any time without notice to consumers, or require airlines to prominently display a disclosure of the financial value of one point or mile in real time.
Durbin, who has proposed a number of payment-related bills, including the
Trump earlier this year weighed into the fight, calling on Congress to cap credit card interest rates at 10%, and urging Congress to pass the Durbin-Marshall bill.
