Your loyalty program members love their status as much as you do. Remember that feeling?
The airport doors slide open before you, your lightweight carry-on rolls easily at your side as you breeze through a short security line and priority check-in.
You’re one of the first to board and your suitcase fits perfectly in the luggage compartment directly above your upgraded business class seat. A flight attendant greets you with a fresh, warm towel and a bubbly glass of champagne.
You’re the envy of other passengers. You kick back and relax, free from stress. Welcome to elite status. There’s nothing better.
Loyalty program members want to feel this–now, more than ever.
The travel industry is recovering and loyalty program members are leading the return with evolved views and expectations. After a two-year hiatus, globetrotting members are looking to make up for lost time and travel by enhancing every moment of their in-air and on-land experiences.
But, while their desire to travel has bounced back fully, travel frequency is still lagging behind pre-pandemic levels. This has put travel brands in a difficult position, as even some of loyalty programs' best members are not naturally qualifying for the tier status benefits that are so effective at driving engagement and loyalty.
Points’ Elite product enables loyalty program members to achieve, maintain, or upgrade their status by purchasing the missing tier points or miles required.
Now more than ever, Elite is a timely solution to profitably capture market share by locking in high-value members.
Challenge:
Upon recognizing the signs of travel rebound, one North American airline wanted to explore a profitable way of maintaining and expanding its pool of elite status members to capture both immediate and future engagement.
Like many programs in the pandemic, this partner had already engaged their high-value members with tactics such as offering free status extensions and reducing the points/miles thresholds to secure a particular tier.
Now, with recovery in sight, our partner needed a unique approach to re-engage existing status members and attract new audiences, all while managing a tight bottom line.
Rather than continuing to automatically extend elite status to their members, this North American airline turned to Points to design and execute a promotional campaign for their Elite product.
The goal: encourage members to purchase qualifying points, and therefore, boost program revenue and engagement. In order to expand and maintain this elite member base, we targeted two segments:
To determine optimal campaign offers and pricing structure, we leveraged historical promotional performance, member's unique purchase behaviour, travel engagement metrics and aggregated industry data. This enabled Points to accurately predict a member's propensity to transact while maximizing traffic, conversion, and profitability.
This data-driven campaign generated near pre-pandemic levels of engagement, with 40% of transactions coming from members newly acquiring Elite status, locking in more high-value, loyal customers.¹
Overall, it drove 4.5x the forecasted revenue, far surpassing expectations and proving there is a more profitable way to meet the demand for status.²
By helping highly engaged members hold or gain status for the upcoming year, this Elite product promotion secured their engagement as travel trends upwards. As loyalty program members continue leading this demand, their desire for perks, upgrades, and an elite experience remains as strong as a delicious double espresso from the exclusive lounge.
Points provides best-in-class loyalty solutions and marketing expertise to nearly 60 of the world's most well-known loyalty programs. Learn more about how Points can help loyalty programs unlock their full potential.
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