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Rewards in a new era of travel COVID-19 has had a huge impact on travel worldwide. PUSELETSO MOMPEI looks at rewards programmes in the industry
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ir miles have long been a favourite reward for airlines to offer to customers as an incentive and to drive loyalty. However, with S&P Global estimating a massive 60 to 70 per cent drop in global air passenger traffic in 2020 compared with 2019, what is happening with rewards in the aviation space? John Friel, chief integration officer at Travelstart, says that with South African Airways and Comair – which operates the British Airways and the kulula.com brands in South Africa – being in business rescue for most of this year, the key players currently in the market do not have frequent flyer schemes, therefore there are no programmes to refer to domestically at this time. Friel explains that while the majority of airlines have protected both their members’ mileage balance and membership tier status, they fully recognise that in the current environment frequent travel has been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic across all of their markets. Airlines own their respective loyalty programmes, says Friel, and so are free to add additional benefits as they see fit to stimulate demand and offer additional rewards to enhance a loyalty programme. That being said, people’s reasons to travel have changed at this time, so they are not necessarily being tempted by such value offerings. “I applaud all major airlines,” says Friel. “They are all doing what is needed to protect their frequent flyers in what can only be described as very difficult times for the entire airline industry globally.”
Pre-festive season revival Travel loyalty programmes are starting to open up again. At the end of September, Vitality announced that its travel platform would reopen for hotel and car hire bookings. The programme indicated that when domestic flight bookings open, Vitality members will be rewarded with upfront discounts of up to 75 per cent, as well as 72 hours’ early access for flight bookings.
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REWARDS FOR NOT FLYING In a seemingly counterintuitive move, Thailand’s national carrier, Thai Airways, launched a campaign during the pandemic handing out up to 3 million free miles to its members. The caveat was that members had to stay home to cash in on them. The campaign, created by Wunderman Thompson, wants to encourage the airline members to stay at home during the coronavirus pandemic. At the same time, the airline hopes they will take the downtime to plan for their travel beyond COVID-19. Source: Wunderman Thompson
L O YA LT Y & R E W A R D S
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2020/11/19 1:22 PM
