What do we want? More upgrades, more free champagne, more space on the plane, more points for every swipe and the biggest hotel room on the property, no matter what room we really booked, with a big breakfast on top too!
Who’s going to pay for it? …groans, silence ensues, crowd disperses.
People are experts in knowing what they personally want. I obviously want all the things above too. Bloggers are also experts in knowing what their audience wants. And surprise: all travel brands generally also know what you want, in great detail too.
What people, or blogs, are (often) not experts in, is the delicate balance between making a reward program truly great for most people, and not just over performing for a select few. Many of whom, may not actually be that loyal. More there later!
And then that other big part: making them not go bankrupt.
Sizing priorities is the other big thing, while we’re at it. What might be deeply desirable for a small faction within a rewards program may be entirely useless for a much larger cohort. It still might be worth doing for the right group, no matter how small though.
It takes real vision to navigate this and even then it can be downright hard to prioritize development efforts — and pick projects that deliver impact to the most people, not just the loudest mob.
As someone whose seen inside and outside of global credit card, airline, hotel and other loyalty programs and also blogs about them, I want to synthesize some of my learnings over the last 11 years from both sides. I believe in the existential importance of delivering the best reward value to customers, but how that’s done is far more surgical than throwing paint at a wall.
You, Of All People?
I’ve been a decently well known travel blogger for over a decade now. I’ve also worked in the loyalty and rewards business for a similar frame of time.
I got into travel loyalty stuff because I always believed more people should. Points are like free money and as a blogger — I thought, if I could explain these once very unnecessarily complex concepts better than the airlines, hotels or credit card companies of the time, maybe just maybe, everyone could be happy and win together.
Cue uplifting string music, roll credits. Fin.
These days, when I see program changes, promotions or new products play out, I get both joy and frustration in knowing that quite often, there’s a lot being said on blogs or, the LinkedIn hot takes, that’s just plain wrong and not backed by anything real in data the reward programs see.
Blogs are like “this is the end, mass mutiny” and the actual numbers are like “new record of people joining in and satisfaction scores are up“, so yeah. Salt, meet grain. What’s been most annoying lately, is that much like with other worldly topics, a loud and vocal 0.01% grabs the headlines as if they represent the silent 99% majority, who don’t exercise a voice.
We Don’t Have The Data
People talk with such certainty online, as if anecdotes from their 50 most engaged readers or friends is more telling than all the financial analysis and mega customer behavioral data being crunched by highly skilled professionals, using decades of history across millions of members.
Fundamentally, I believe in the danger of feedback loops and “yes people” who ferment myopic, fringe ideas of “what should be” into methuselahs of nonsense champagne, by totally failing to consider wider customer priorities. If you do nothing for me, why should I do anything for you?
People don’t spend enough time wondering if they could be wrong, and if others may not be nearly as bitter about whatever just happened. There’s no perfect science though.
Data can go against common sense and need refinement and you can totally have bozos at any travel or rewards business who get the objectives wrong, or lose sight of the customer and why they play. But, it’s rarely as wrong as people pontificating blindly on the interwebs.
Misinterpreted data can also leave some glaring “what about this scenario?” things out of new opportunities or big changes, but that’s where a strong discourse among loyalty or rewards leaders with the wider business typically puts the common sense back into the real, data-driven modeling.
What people often fail to consider is that their opinion may be “right-ish” for their niche of audience, but that really, their audience is typically at best representative of 1% of the general audience — and most people, 99% or more, don’t actually share their point of view at all.
Depending on the blog or medias platform – the audience may be the 1% of least loyal, most difficult customers with truly impossible and unsustainable expectations for rewards and perks; some of whom enjoy benefits which cost a program far more than they spend.
These people don’t want anyone in the travel ecosystem to benefit from them, but they want to profit significantly from everyone in the ecosystem — sometimes including you. And they want to rail against anyone who tries to take their free toys away. That’s champagne socialism and under that system there are no rewards.
Some blogs love to indulge this fringe behavior because really, the “stick it to the man” hacks are their only really valued audience content and if there’s nothing to hack, bye-bye audience. More on how sticking it to the man is really often just sticking it to yourself, later.
Not all blogs are created equal.
There are big blog and mega social media audiences of the 1% most engaged and totally worthwhile customers who are vital to a loyalty program and its long term success.
These readers want to know what’s going on, they like to stay current, and their main focus is on vocally championing things ahead with better products and services, using their expertise. It’s not just ways to get around the program ever balancing the books. They know the global standards and they want to see that. They should!
Sometimes which blog audience is which would surprise you — and other times it would not. Stop me in an airport any time, and we’ll discuss over coffee or wine!
Too Myopic: Satisfying More Customers, Not One
Trying to please “everyone” isn’t always best, but trying to please wacky militias isn’t typically advisable either. One of the hardest jobs for loyalty program leaders, is making moves, feature updates and rewards changes which impact the most people positively.
Giving the most people the best loyalty experience is a tough thing to steer away from.
How would you justify to your boss in any real world job, that rolling out something like free wifi for all loyalty members is less important than doing a data integration with another airline that only 0.005% of members ever book, that brings in virtually no money so that it’s easier for 0.005% of members to pick off the best seats, which annoys your partner?
Anyway, another area I think bloggers generally get wrong, but not always entirely, is dynamic redemptions. And don’t worry, I swear there are many blogger positives coming soon.
People talk about the dynamic redemption of points and miles — where every airline seat or hotel room is available with points, but with different prices on different days — as if it’s the universal end of the world when a program shifts to that model.
I think that often comes from a admirably protective, but also naive look, even when it’s rooted in good intention or feels justifiably dubious.
Every data point I’ve ever seen taken from real world dynamic redemption data within properly run loyalty programs, is that when a program still commits to bringing equivalent, rich, lead-in pricing value to customers, more people actually get what they want with their points.
Again, isn’t it better for millions of people who could never find the needle in the haystack seat or hotel room before, to be able to find what they perceive to be valuable options which allow them to extract value via a redemption?
I hate it when programs change the goal posts, or no-notice devalue, but quite often we see programs actually lower their lowest prices when they go dynamic and spread costs. For those who were always extreme value hunters there’s usually equal if not better value, if they’re ready to be equally opportunistic. It’s just likely not going to be spring break.
Again – the crux is whether it’s done by a program with good intentions, or evil ambitions.
With dynamic redemptions done right that don’t raise minimum prices, It’s not just the hackers in the basement getting great outcomes, it’s empowering people to find their travel need. They go, get a full calendar look and plan accordingly. High priced and median dates still make sense for many people who earn faster than they spend, even if it’s not max value. They don’t care.
Many, MANY more people do not have date flexibility than any blogger really considers and many aren’t actually obsessed with assigning an inflated value to their points currency. Those people are the silent majority and most polls indicate over 90% of travelers do not have date flexibility. It’s the inverse with most blog crowds.
Everyone should 100% know the potential of their loyalty currency though, and that’s the first area where I’d say blogs ARE really useful.
Keeping Score Is A Vital Public Service
As promised, positivity about this blogging space.
There must always be a compelling value exchange between the member and the program. It shouldn’t definitively get worse. Somebody needs to keep score, and that’s where bloggers add real value and public good.
If a program moves to dynamic and lead in prices are 20,000 points for whatever thing, but then suddenly its 30,000 minimum and that’s new, that’s markedly bad for customers trying to set earning goals and impacts everyone. Things happen over time, points are not CDs or ISAs, but overnight drama isn’t ideal.
Programs which have done away with any “teaching” materials of lead-in pricing, which allow people to goal set off of, deserve every bit of grief they get. At that point, rewards are a black box of “computer says” and low value.
Blogs do a much better job of tracking lead in pricing and creating media pressure than any other medium on the planet when it comes to intendedly stealthy points devaluations. I think where people go wrong is with entitlement on the perks side. No one is entitled to anything in life and elite status certainly follows that.
I always, always stress the importance of helping people to goal set when I speak with loyalty programs. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes, and if you don’t know the rules of the game or the prize — it’s a dumb game. If you help people get a sense for the journey needed to “win” their game, everyone can win and its the prerogative of the program to set the levels.
More and more often, the media jumps in on blog stories and suddenly, CEOs who hoped no one would notice when they raise the points price of a hotel room overnight (lol, right?) — the internet is hard to wipe –have to answer uncomfortable questions about how they really value members and why they tried to hide it all. That applies good pressure to any future program changes to be transparent, give notice and respect their members.
Another great win – attention for promotions. It’s really hard to keep track of all the various opportunities in loyalty, my email is flooded, so when a blogger amplifies that message and adds good context, it’s typically a win all around.
“Winning” Today Can Be Losing Tomorrow Too
I wish I didn’t know as much about winning clicks on the internet as I do. If I write “hotel changes guest rewards” as a headline, no one is going to click.
But, if I write “hotel massively upends rewards system, people freaking out”, I can put my computer away for the day and watch the pennies add up. I’ll also probably get quoted by a big paper looking for the sensationalist hook to an often boring story only actually impacting 0.01% of people.
What’s ironic here about travel rewards blogs, is that they don’t have loyal audiences who read ALL their content. They have audiences who click the juiciest “burn the place down” stuff and ignore most of the rest. But that’s not always in the best interest of readers.
It’s in the best interest of clicks, which generate revenue for the blog.
Some blogs actively encourage people to get a credit card, max out the bonus, and then cancel that card for a pro-rata refund on the annual fee. If everyone in the world did that, we would have zero rewards attached to any credit cards. When those same blogs complain about those type of loopholes going away, it’s beyond obvious that they’re the reason good things go away.
I’ve seen airline promotions recently which had great intentions, but were ripped to shreds financially by people gaming the spirit of the promotion. Surprise, it’s unlikely another airline will offer seven digit rewards points again as a result.
What people fail to understand is that no one likes to lose, or be robbed. T
A bank doesn’t care if 99.9% of customers are being honest if someone, even just one person, is actively robbing a branch. They want to stop the person robbing the bank, as much as they want to keep honest customers happy.
Blog Success: Showcasing Hidden Pain Points
A thing blogs sometimes do really well is to present the voice of customer eloquently and in ways internal teams never get across the line or fully understood.
In big organizations, major hotel groups, banks or airlines, sometimes what works technically does not always end up seamless for the customer and in the process of simply getting it out the door, important “let’s get real here” pieces get lost.
Bad features and products still happen. Blogs share good feedback.
Having blogs use screenshots or walkthroughs to showcase just how confusing or laborious something is, is often highly valuable to everyone. By everyone, I mean the brand which must do better with the product or feature release and missed the mark, and the customer who deserves better.
Blogs are wonderfully ruthless in often immediately being able to point to what “best in class” is elsewhere and how off the mark a new launch is. Benchmarking is easy for bloggers who live in the minutia, but not easy for many others. Sometimes it’s over simplified or conflated but when it’s not, it’s fantastic stuff.
Outrage Sells, Being Fair Is Boring
I read blogs every day. Some make me want to throw my coffee cup at a window, while others bring great joy, while passing on useful news, deep perspective or just a fun enthusiasm for loyalty and rewards.
I’ve learned so much from other blogs and from readers over the years. I’ve also so much from the business side of loyalty, about the practical challenges in delivery or balancing the priorities. Sometimes they’re weak excuses, other times they’re really valid.
There’s always going to be a cops and robbers element to this game, and I hope this long winded piece inspired some thought about the framing of things, what’s fair and not — and how incentives aren’t always aligned, even between a blogger and their audience. Creating fake rage is all the rage these days, so if you’re a reader – process accordingly.
A program making things easier for most people to understand might be bad news for the writer, who needs confusion to keep an audience engaged.
It’s the 10 predictions to imply they have some insider knowledge, and when none of them materialize they latch on to the smallest thing and say that’s what they were talking about 🤣
I, for one, read everything you write Gilbert. It’s gotten a lot easier now that you’re generally less prolific (which I’d hazard is probably a good thing for your life in general!)