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Thread: Aug 2015 - New AC Listens survey on gift cards
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Old Aug 15, 2015 | 3:54 pm
  #8  
DrPete
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Originally Posted by Jasper2009
Yes and no.

Selling GCs is a good deal for the company since:

1) customers lose GCs / forget to redeem them (IIRC the general estimate is in the 10% range)
2) customers are "forced" to buy tickets from AC and possibly pay a premium / may consider fewer options
3) customers are probably forced to purchase directly from AC (i.e. no purchases via 3rd parties / TAs = no commission payments)
4) it's basically an interest-free loan

So even if AC offered a 10%-15% discount, it could still work out in its favour.


You make a lot of good points, but if a significant percentage of customers started to use gift cards, wouldn't the effective 10%-15% discount really hurt the bottom line in an industry that generally makes relatively little profit on every dollar a customer spends? I wonder what percent TAs or vendors like expedia when selling AC tickets?
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