Airline frequent-flier programs were not included in US Bankruptcy Court?
 

Is it true that United Airlines and others, who were under Chapter 11 protection for a while, had already SOLD off their 'frequent flier' programs to financial entities such as 'CityBank'?

These might be worth about $2,000,000,000 US or more-but were not included in bankruptcy court proceedings, as should be required under US Federal law?

Is this news true or bogus?
Was it possible via a gigantic loophole?

If true, this could prove quite interesting due to grossly under-funded US airline pension funds :*.

I thought that frequent flier programs only represented "debt" to the airlines.

Perhaps they may have sold any rights to revenue sharing on their FF credit cards to the issuing banks.

Or perhaps they struck a deal where the CC issuers would pay them for the miles deposited into the FF accounts.