Frequent Flyer Programs

marianneliz | Oct 31, 2010 |

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Customer loyalty programs and rewards programs are structured marketing efforts that reward customers who are loyal and recurring buyers of products and services from the same company. Customer loyalty programs and rewards programs are used to reward customers, build customers' faithfulness to the company's brand and increase sales of the company's products and services by providing rewards for further purchases.

Another use of discount card and club card rewards programs is to obtain information relating to customers' spending habits which will consecutively facilitate to improve the company's products and services. Customer loyalty programs and rewards programs are used widely in the retail, hotel, hospitality and airline sectors.

Discount Cards can have a barcode or magstripe that can be easily scanned, and some are even chip rewards cards. Small keyring cards (also known as keytags) which serve as key fobs are often used for ease in carrying and simplicity of access.

Types of Customer loyalty Programs

Under customer loyalty programs and rewards programs, customers get cards with a continuous discount (such as 5% on net sales) for a period of time. Many supermarket chains such as Safeway and Tesco offer loyalty cards through customer loyalty programs.
Customers receive points when they pay for goods or services from the company with their loyalty cards and points earned on these cards can be used to gain free or discounted goods or services.

In the second type of customer loyalty program, customers may be able to redeem the points as they are given or may be required to accumulate a minimum number of points before the points can be redeemed. Examples of such customer loyalty programs include frequent flyer miles programs offered by airlines where customers earn frequent flyer miles by flying on the airlines and then redeeming the miles in exchange for tickets, upgrades, or third-party benefits. These include the American Airlines AAdvantage frequent flyer program and the Singapore Airlines Krisflyer frequent flyer program. Pop culture and movies such as "Up in the Air" starring George Clooney have popularized airline frequent flyer programs.

Types of Frequent Flyer Programs:

AirTran A+ Rewards
Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air Mileage Plan
American AAdvantage
Continental OnePass - Will be combined with United's Mileage Plus program on approval of the merger.
Delta SkyMiles
Frontier EarlyReturns
Hawaiian Hawaiian Miles
JetBlue TrueBlue
Midwest Miles
Southwest Rapid Rewards
Spirit Airlines FREE SPIRIT
United Mileage Plus - Will absorb Continental's OnePass program on approval of merger with Continental Airlines
US Airways Dividend Miles
Virgin America eleVAte - Miles earned after February 2010 expire after 18 months of account inactivity.