Originally Posted by
BA or bust
I think the main problem is that the articles and the suggestions this far are all quite complex for people to understand.
Now we here on FT are definitely not ‘average punters’ (or the ‘average Joe’ for our American friends). We here on FT are generally well versed in dissecting and understanding complex rules for loyalty schemes. But we are unusual. The beauty (if you can call it that) of the old mileage based scheme is that it was relatively simple to explain and for the average person to understand.
So therefore I think the most important aspect for any loyalty scheme is that it needs to be easy to understand. If not people will just not bother. Now we on FT might bother to grapple with complexity… but the average person (who is also the average BA customer) will not.
(1) Per your handle note in your sig, it's a pity you can't change it to "BA, Go Bust".
(2) I agree with your comments here. If you had a "rolling" earn process where "Every X dollars spent, you get Y objectively defined reward", that's one thing (and I think he botched explaining that in option four). But reference my experience with Panera - if the program becomes arcane in terms of what I will/might get, I'm going to throw up my hands and cancel my account. It's also worth noting that the writer only listed "aspirational" awards...and while those are great, he really didn't confront the possibility that a lot of folks might not be looking for "boilerplate aspirational" awards and might really prefer some more down-to-earth trip options for that holiday. I'm pretty sure that e.g. a long weekend at Euro Disney, hotel and tickets included, would run BA less. I don't run all of my traffic through Hyatt so I can stay at the Park Hyatt somewhere on a splash-out trip; I do it so I can get solid value down in Florida or up in Ottawa (or cover myself at Worldcon without having to mess with the hotel block).