Someone help me. I’m being bullied by Southwest Airlines.
Actually, a better set of descriptive terms would be pestered, annoyed, or amused, depending on the day.
The source of my discontent is my mailbox. Southwest has sent me a solicitation for its frequent flyer cobrand credit card at least once per month for probably the past 2 [...]

What do you do when you have a solution in your hand in search of a problem?
If you’re the creator of the solution, you sell, sell, sell, crafting magnificent stories describing the power of your solution to change lives and create profits. That approach is mandated by fiduciary responsibility to those investors who brought your [...]

Everyone knows that the air travel experience isn’t what is used to be. My recent trip around the world in 5 days served to accentuate the contrast of today’s reality with more elegant days past, while reminding me of solutions that remain untapped by the airlines to improve their standing with frequent flyers.
Some aspects of [...]

The practice of Loyalty Accounting has become increasingly important as programs have matured and the value of deferred financial liability on corporate balance sheets has grown.
The key offset to the balance sheet liability is breakage. It is the word used to describe the value of the accumulated points that go by the wayside and is [...]

Every day I play on the seesaw.
It seems like I have one call with a person who expresses doubt about the efficacy of traditionally structured loyalty programs, and then turn around and inadvertently encounter a new program to add to my growing list that I have catalogued and reviewed.
Every seesaw has a balance point.
In this [...]

I’m sensing a tipping point in how customers relate to loyalty program rewards, and my thinking goes like this: when customers choose which company to do business with, rewards just don’t matter like they used to.
My take is that the classic loyalty reward scheme—earning points toward “hard” rewards for repeatedly doing business with a company—has [...]

Patrick Sojka knows credit cards, travel rewards cards in Canada to be precise. As CEO & Founder of Rewards Canada, he’s been cataloging and ranking the myriad of offers in the Canadian market to help consumers find the best deals for their wallets and their loyalty points banks since 2001.
If you think Americans are reward-crazy, [...]

Listening to execs sharing insights into key airline marketing and business issues at The Mega Event 2010, I put together an airline loyalty marketing  IQ test just for you.
The questions were raised and answered through a compilation of remarks from the following companies including, but not limited to: Aeroplan, American Express, Emirates Airways, Kobie Marketing, [...]

The Mega Event wrapped up last week in Montreal with the first annual presentation of the Mega Awards honoring the best in airline frequent flyer programs (FFP) and a second day of presentations that covered social media, coalition marketing, and a keynote which unveiled the term “Trustability” from Don Peppers.
Mega Awards were conceived to recognize [...]

I don’t usually include conference reports as posts in Loyalty Truth, but the quality of content shared by key persons in the airline / banking / loyalty industries during the first day of the Mega Event was so strong that I make an exception.
Rupert Duchesne, President Groupe Aeroplan kicked off the day by talking about [...]