Getting Rewards Right in an Evolving Loyalty Landscape

Skift Take

In this video from Skift Future of Lodging Forum, we hear from Rob McDonald, chief commercial officer of IAG Loyalty, about the dynamically changing landscape in travel loyalty and how brands can stand apart in an era where customers are becoming more empowered to shop around if they don’t see rewards quickly.

IAG Loyalty

In this video:

• Customers want value and choice without compromise: The loyalty market is maturing. Many travelers are seeing challenging economic times, but meanwhile, they’ve become very savvy in understanding what they can get from loyalty programs. They don’t want to have to trade down and will shop around for a loyalty program that can give them both value and choices.
• Programs need to deliver rewards as soon as possible: There’s been a step change in how quickly brands need to deliver value. Customers want to get to that first reward faster, even if it’s something outside of travel.
• Loyalty has been elevated to mission-critical: For the past 12 to 18 months, loyalty has been an even hotter topic of conversation all the way up to the C-suite. As brands are seeing parity on price and looking for a better differentiator, experiential rewards can make a substantial impact.

Loyalty programs are integral to the success of travel brands, especially as pent-up post-pandemic demand has collided with economic volatility. New research from IAG Loyalty found that 92 percent of travelers believe that loyalty programs provide extra value during a cost-of-living crisis such as the environment they’re living through now, and 55 percent said they are finding new ways to collect points amid the convergence of increased costs and tightened budgets. Download the report to learn more.

In this video from Skift Future of Lodging Forum, we hear from Rob McDonald, chief commercial officer of IAG Loyalty, in conversation with Skift President Carolyn Kremins, about the dynamically changing landscape in travel loyalty and how brands can stand apart in an era where customers are becoming more empowered to shop around if they don’t see rewards quickly.

This content was created collaboratively by IAG Loyalty and Skift’s branded content studio, SkiftX.