Off the top of my head, I can think of 3 reasons why elite flyers would be an exception to this rule and I’m not an elite flyer. Yet. :-)

1. They are more likely to be business travelers where the ticket was paid on a card they don’t carry.

2. The airline had, and probably will have, lots of contact with them. Plenty of chances to help the authorities arrest them for identity theft.

3. The elite flyers probably have more mileage in their accounts that can be held hostage.

For instance, perhaps an employee’s company could provide him with a notarized letter verifying the card information. And maybe a photo of the employee.

Alternately, perhaps the airline could accept, say, two picture ID’s, one a company employee ID, the other a driver’s license, passport, or the like.

If I had even a small company with, say 10-12 employees and dispatched one somewhere using a corporate card, I would NOT be willing to hand over that card to the employee, no matter how trusted an employee he or she might be.

Having been the victim of identify theft myself (and more than once, at that), I greatly appreciate any effort by anyone to lessen it.

At the same time, it clearly isn’t at all reasonable to expect an employee to even have any access to a corporate card, let alone have it in his possession.

Would an airline ask, for example, the CEO of a major corporation such as GM or Walmart to produce the card the company’s travel department used to arrange a flight, hotel, or the like? Well, maybe — but how logical would that be?

I’m *not* attacking airlines. I am saying there’s got to be a better way.