In the last two months, I traveled on a dozen different airlines, in three continents. Each with a different loyalty program. And each just a difficult to understand for the so-called “elite” traveler. It seemed that while trying to please an ever-increasing variety of travelers, airlines were creating a veil of confusion before the traveler even signs up for the program.

So then, what should an ideal frequent flyer program look like to make it truly work for the airline brand? Taking inspiration from the best loyalty programs in the world, as well as my own observations from the two conferences in Miami I spoke at last week, here are some thoughts.

What would make me a loyal traveler with an airline?

Simplicity – How often do you know exactly what you can redeem from the points earned from your next flight? What if it was as simple as for every $1 spent, you will be able to redeem $0.01 off your next ticket or a partner purchase? I think keeping the earning-burning process as simple as possible would attract many more customers for …

Last week, I spent three days in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, hanging out with Loyalty marketing professionals from around the world at the Loyalty 2010 conference. I met a number of very talented and interesting people, from airlines, hotels and even retails chain that are trying to drive loyalty.

Also part of the event was the Loyalty 2010 Awards for the Most Innovative Loyalty program. The judges had shortlisted the Top 3, and the audience voted for the best. Air Berlin came out tops, though I think each program was very unique. And I share with you here, what makes them so good!

1. Air Berlin’s MyRoute customers earn double miles on their frequently flown routes
Try to solve this problem. You need to get price sensitive customers to fly you on their most-flown routes, which are also the most competitive due to many airlines offering an undifferentiated product on those routes. You know you got to think out of the box when solving this one. And Air Berlin’s Johannes Ganser and Sophie Wennekers, along with their Loyalty Marketing team, did just that.

In April 2009, the airline launched MyRoute where members select …

If you’re already up and running on Twitter, Facebook or other social media tools, a great way to augment your social media efforts is by tapping on one of the hottest trends around, location based services (“LBS”). Location based social networking is something VERY well suited for airlines. Just like “Tweets” was the buzzword of 2009, by the end of 2010, I expect “Mayor” to be the buzzword. And, these services are made to work well in the travel industry.
Popular Location Based Services
If you’re unfamiliar with LBS, here are a few that are popular, including a couple of travel specific ones:

Foursquare - Foursquare is a location based game/application, where users “check-in” at places around the city.  They get points for check-ins, adding new locations, and extra points for multiple check-ins in one day.  Check-ins can be automatically shared on Twitter and Facebook.  They can also become “Mayor” of a location if they have been there the most out of all Foursquare users.  Friends have access to see where you are, and where you’ve been, which can facilitate social gatherings that might have not otherwise happened.

Some companies are starting to use this application to …

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Continuing my conversation with Randy Petersen – probably the world’s best known frequent flyer – we chat about the relevance of social media to airlines, the future of Flyertalk and Randy’s predictions for aviation in 2009.
Frequent Flyers + Web 2.0
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Traditionally, travelers have picked frequent flyer programs for convenience, not always because they are the best program.

But today, they choose a program because of its merits, because the Internet is open and it breaks down boundaries. “Self-selecting… is the biggest testimony of a good program”, Randy claims.

Randy believes that most of the current business travelers are going to retire soon and will be replaced by the next generation that lives and breathes social media. These customers are going to be totally immersed into it, and airlines need to adopt it sooner than later. Exactly the same point I’ve been trying to make in my recent articles on airline branding and social media.
Flyertalk as the next Web 2.0 powerhouse?
Flyertalk, a community for frequent flyers Randy started 11 years ago is one of the most popular of its kind out there. Though Flyertalk wasn’t started as a social media …