Coffee, tea or credit cards? United flight attendants set to make this new pitch

Coffee, tea and snacks have always been the mainstay of thirsty flyers through the years and flight attendants have been kept busy doling out copious quantities of the same. Now, there is a big variation that has been introduced in the theme. To coffee, tea, another product has now been added on the menu of United airlines flight attendants - credit cards. And for this, they receive a kickback, officially! 
 
This work has now been added to the list of flight attendants duties on United. Apart from asking for coffee, tea and snacks, they will now be asking whether passengers want credit cards too. And they can promise freebies to go with the cards that are related to United service.

In an internal message sent to flight crews on Tuesday, John Slater, the senior vice president of in-flight services, shared that as of September 1, United would start requiring its flight crews to pitch credit cards on every domestic and international flight that the airline operates. Additionally, the company is rolling out new, required training to educate crews on the benefits of the cards, reported Skift.

Slater justified the initiative to Skift by saying, “Some of our biggest competitors, including American, actively promote their cards through the In-flight division and have a sizable lead on the number of new customers their flight attendants generate by marketing the card on board”. 
 
He added, “We need to answer this challenge just as we would any other competitive threat.” United has a Chase co-branded credit card. That the airliner would appreciate their work is clear from the fact that the kickback for flight attendants was slated to be hiked from the current $50 bonus to $100. 

The case of American Airlines is that, since it officially merged with US Airways, it has been pitching credit cards to passengers in the form of a co-branded Barclays credit card. It may be a nuisance, but the rising sales numbers indicate it does work. After all, where else will you get a captive audience if not 30,000 feet up in the skies! Flight attendants are surely loving it as they get kickbacks for every signup. 

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While this selling trend is not new, it is increasingly being resorted to by airlines whose revenues are constantly in danger of going into the red.