Originally Posted by
HaleiwaFlyer
You realize UAE residents have EK credit cards with large bonuses too right? EK Skywards has the following breakdown:
3.7 million members in the United Kingdom, 3 million in the United States, 2.2 million in the United Arab Emirates, 2.1 million in Australia and 2.1 million in India....with around 30 million members worldwide). So yes, achieving tiers to unlock new rewards (such as F redemptions) is the pure definition of consumers being gamified in a loyalty program. It is not due to US credit card holders.
In addition, some of the biggest customers of airlines, are the airline mile purchasers, such as credit cards/merchants/retailers. People should listen to the podcast with
EKs Skyward Director and how he changed Skywards for the top 3% of premium flyers early on, to the current loyalty program that is for everyone globally. BA is having its own metaphorsis of where they want BAC to become (opposite pendulum of EK's program in my opinion). BAC is only in its infancy and will change over time; as it should, to perfect their program, from their perspective.
As for high spenders, I don't think they really care about redemptions as much, since they purchase F/J anyways and time is more valuable than to figure out redemptions.
EK cobranded credit cards are not really the problem since EK’s deal with the issuer means they will take a chunky share of the margin to sweeten the blow, in addition to any passenger who takes out such a card also being highly likely to be someone who books EK cash fares. The problem is the ever expanding general US transferable points currency universe - someone who happens to have a stack of Chase points and will
never book a cash EK ticket has limited value as a customer and if they take all the redemption availability away which then puts off more valuable passengers engaging with Skywards it can actually be damaging.
High spenders also do care about premium cabin redemptions in my experience, in fact they value them
more than the average consumer. If you would happily spend £25K cash to fly your family of four to the Maldives in Club World for Christmas, then having the option to instead redeem miles is incredibly valuable and may lead to you directing all your work LHR-JFKs to BA throughout the year. In contrast, if you don’t fly much and your cash budget for the same flights is £6K in Economy but you’d also take a redemption in Club World if it came up, you probably value that redemption at not much more than £6K…