Corporate Blog

Spurred by a rapidly changing digital landscape and dynamic market context, expectations from loyalty programs have changed for both business and leisure travelers. While loyalty played a crucial role helping airlines weather the pandemic, what new realities should airlines consider to fulfill member expectations moving forward? Let's explore four key trends that are shaping airline loyalty today and into the near future.  1. Traveler and staff empowerment It's no secret that in the early days of the pandemic airlines and travelers experienced a high degree of friction managing massi...

Loyalty programs enjoyed newfound fame over the past couple of years, having bailed many airlines out of the pandemic's financial turmoil. As airlines sought financial relief, loyalty programs reasserted their value to the business, endearing many a CEO along the way. While loyalty leaders were already aware of their programs' revenue contribution, they continue to be frustrated by the volume of untapped opportunities. If only senior airline leaders understood and addressed the factors limiting loyalty's full potential, even more revenue could be unlocked. As hero loyalty programs slowly come ...

While technology professionals are well aware of the advantages microservices architectures deliver, why should business leaders in loyalty actually care? Why not just let the IT team worry about such complicated technical topics? In short, because it has a direct impact on your loyalty business. Successful loyalty programs add value to their members, which translates into revenues for the program provider. Creating an engaging loyalty program involves facilitating everyday earn and burn opportunities for members so they can extract full benefit from the scheme. And that involves launching new...

I spent 14 years across different Revenue Management and Marketing roles at American Airlines before joining the AAdvantage leadership team.And it took another few years in AAdvantage until I came to a powerful realization – airline loyalty programs should be much more than just Frequent Flyer Programs (FFP). They should really be Customer Engagement Programs (CEP). While this realization seemed so clear to me, it quickly became apparent that it's a difficult concept to help airline leaders understand. And I can't blame them because I only saw the light after digging deep into loyalty myself. ...

Loyalty schemes have taken center stage during the pandemic, even becoming financial lifelines, as airlines seek to boost revenues through program member engagement and retention. In our recent eBook, "Four low or no-cost ways to improve the value of airline loyalty currencies", we looked at different tactics that airlines can apply to increase loyalty program value. In this post, I would like to focus on "the pooling effect". What is the pooling effect? Also known as "Family Accounts", "Householding", and "Mileage Pooling", the idea is gaining traction across the industry and is based on huma...