I just stumbled across this story on the internet:

Coutts Bank Confirms Air Miles Replacement

9 May 2007 

In the UK, the private bank Coutts & Co. (the private arm of the high street bank NatWest) has announced that it is also to withdraw from the Air Miles programme in June 2007 (also see 2nd May 2007), and is replacing the programme with its own loyalty rewards scheme called Courtesy of Coutts. The new programme allows Coutts cardholders to earn points when making purchases with their credit card, and to redeem those points to pay for EasyJet flights, travel booked through eBookers.com, airport taxes and other travel charges, or charity donations.

This article is copyright 2007 TheWiseMarketer.com.

My wife and I recently went to St. Petersburg using Air Miles that we'd earned several years ago, primarily with our Coutts Signia card.  The Air Miles people were extremely helpful.  We flew on a "proper" airline, and stayed at an excellent hotel.  I looked at various destinations before deciding on St. Petersburg, and Air Miles had a large selection of airlines, hotels, etc. --- even in Nepal.

I might be cynical and jaded, but Courtesy of Coutts offering flights on EasyJet?  What does that say about the Bank's customers?  In fairness, I've never flown on EasyJet --- I've just seen how it operates on television.  (I know, I know:  mustn't believe everything you see on the telly.)  My wife has said that she will divorce me if I ever consider booking a flight on EasyJet.

I just had a quick peek at the EasyJet website, and on the first page the button you click to start a booking says, "Book a cheap flight."

Quite a change from when Peregrine Banbury at Coutts & Co. (yes, that was his real name) told me that the fees would be "reassuringly expensive."  I thought that was a clever line --- it wasn't until later that I learned he'd pinched it from a beer advertisement.

Nothing "reassuringly expensive" about EasyJet, Courtesy of Coutts.