How to improve tomorrow's FFPs?
 

All,

I am looking for ideas to improve the FFPs of tomorrow. Are there some favorite benefits from other loyalty programs out there that you wish your airline did? What new initiatives could your airline enact to make you a happier Frequent Flyer?

Some examples of general categories I am considering are:

Private events for elites
Travel assistance (car / shuttle service, parking, concierge services)
Personalized promotions
Benefits for families
Credit card benefits
etc, etc, etc

What do you want? TAKE THIS OPPORTUNITY TO BE HEARD - in some time, your suggestions could become real!

Thank you for your thoughtful responses.

Sincerely,
Here to Learn

have 2 counters for rdm.....1 for flight mi, the other for other [cc,shopping], then give award preference to the people w/flight mi, or, if more profitable, to the other....

1. More availability at lower tiers instead of the smoke and mirrors game of only offering mid or high level tier.

2. See #1.


All the other stuff is meaningless. We participate in FF programs so we can fly.. not so we can have a concierge buff our shoes. I directly fly and accrue miles specifically on airlines that offer more availability when I want to redeem my miles. I'll even pay a few dollars more for that ticket when it comes down to it.

Ask me how many times I've actually purchased a Delta ticket. Zero. I'll take all of their freebies gladly, but I'll never give them a dime of my money by buying a seat on their planes. The reason for this is their complete charade of even having a low tier at all. You can do a search from now until next April, and there is not one.. single.. day.. in.. green. Every single one is yellow/mid tier. It's complete garbage.


So again.. if you want to encourage ridership.. then let us ride! In the end, that's what we're all here for.

(1) Make your entire alliance available for online booking. This one is huge for me. If you're in Star Alliance, I'm probably flying you because I think your 27 friends are cute, not just you. So don't make it so damned hard to get to them, okay?

(2) No YQ. It's offensive, insulting, and should be illegal.

(3) Be fair about award availability on low-demand flights. I've had several itins where I have a DL international J award from ATL onward, but can't get *any* stinking coach award on any date from MCI to ATL. C'mon, crappy half-empty Tuesday night flight to ATL, make that available... They usually become available close to the travel date, but why make this so damned hard? I'm having the same problem this year on AA: I have a whole itin assembled from Chicago to Jordan, India, and Nepal...but can't get any MCI-ORD segment. :(

(4) Allow one-way awards.

(5) Have reasonable SWU rules. If I have to buy up to a fare that's $500+ more than the S or T fare to use a SWU, then the SWU isn't worth all that much....especially given that $500-700 is a fairly common space-available day of travel upgrade offer.

I pretty much agree with the above. You might want to look at some of the aspects of former Star Alliance member bmi, as their program was looked upon quite favorably by many frequent flyers; the highlights (somewhat simplified) are listed below:

When spending miles:
* One-way awards (for 1/2 the price of a roundtrip)
* One stopover allowed on either a one-way award or r/t award
* Half cash half miles on award booking (either one-way or r/t)
* Economy (Y) award cost in line with (or cheaper than) the competition (50k US-Europe r/t, 80k US-Australia r/t, etc.)
* Good relative value for business (C)/first class (F) redemptions vs. Y [on bmi, a C award cost 1.5 times a Y award, F awards were Y times 2]
* Opening up award availability on your airline when requested by an elite FF

When earning miles:
* Better class-of-service bonuses vs. others (2x for business tickets, 3x for first class)
* Minimum mile earning for short flights (bmi was 600)
* Flight miles above 55000/yr earn double spending miles
* Credit card with sign-up bonus
* Good mile earning potential from partners (e.g. 1000 miles/night @ Hilton)

Other:
* Family memberships allowing consolidation of miles into one account
* Lounge access/more baggage free/use of shorter lines to check in or access security/priority assistance during IRROPS

I'm sure I'm forgetting a few things about their program, but the above should give you a few ideas. Things like (generic) travel assistance or private events will cost you more than most people will value them; your best bet is to try to offer things that cost you less than they are valued by your potential FF clients (such as free flights).

Good Luck!

Ummm, give more away, either implicitly by loosening yield management on the awards, or explicitly by lowering the mileage requirements for redemption.

You're asking the wrong question though. Who cares how satisfied your customers are, from the perspective of a FFP? You should be looking for ways to enhance the plan that will drive future revenue and purchasing decisions to your carrier, not to reward people for what they flew in the past.

F awards on every flight for 10K miles, OK I'll go 20K for overseas... no, seriously...

I think a big issue is transparency. Everyone will have their pet peeve - the BIS flyer wants his upgrade before the one who got status via a credit card; the credit card member wants his upgrade because earned his EQM's - but a little transparency, say the ability to see how many unclaimed F seats there are.

Transparency in awards, and ensuring that with reasonable planning you can get what you want. I have specific flights I want (Air Canada 7980 on Fridays and AC 7979 on Sundays) and I'll bet that if I look out 12 months, there aren't but 2 or 3 times in all that time I can get those flights. Make a minimum % of award seats available on every flight (partners included) and let me know that if I get online at midnight the Nth day before the flight (331 or whatever) I will get that seat I want. Note that on the flights I mentioned, the flights usually go out half-empty, but still no award seats.

Transparency in booking. You shouldn't need a Ph.D. in software to book an award ticket. (Actually I work for a software firm with a bunch of Ph.D.'s, and I think most of them are mystified!) Last time I booked an overseas award, it took me 5 calls, averaging an hour each. Would it really be that hard to have a tool that shows the number of award seats on each flight, and then just let me construct my own ininerary?

It is a fact that while in every other industry, companies compete in a race to the top for customer service, in the airline biz companies compete in a race to the bottom. Each one carefully watches the others to see how they can degrade service, saying "I hope he gets away with it because then I can copy it." Nobody expects every seat on every flight for minimum miles. But I'll bet that a company that was clear and transparent would actually get loyalty. In another thread I posted that I was trying to plan for some future overseas travel, and mused about what programs to target. The real answer is, who knows, because there's no way to tell who has availability or how they'll devalue their programs. Suppose I wanted to buy a luxury car and it will take years of saving but somehow I have to save toward only one manufacturer. I could shop, pick out my heart's desire, and know that in 4 or 5 or 6 or 7 years I'll have it. Yes, it's possible that manufacturer could discontinue the model I like best, or raise prices more than I'd like, but I'm unlikely to feel like I made a horrible decision 6 years ago when I started saving.

who are you?....who is your client?

How will I be heard exactly? What is your plan for turning suggestions into reality? Moreover, what airline or other entity are you (or are you working for)?

Here's my 2 cents on some of your ideas:Some other suggestions:
allow rollover miles for elites (DL already does it)
allow a "cash and miles" redemption option similar to hotels

I'd say at this point it's "Goad my cack Airlines".

Either that, or someone's bored on a Thursday night. Expend your own energy with caution.

Great post. The one good thing about Delta is that miles don't expire, so if sometime in the next 20 years if a seat does come open, my miles will still be there to take it.

Won't you need to add a few million more miles by then to get that open seat?:rolleyes: My bad - I forgot that will only happen if you log on with your Skymiles number to book the seat. If you log on anonymously it should be fine.:D

I thought it was a billion ;)

More thoughts...sparked by roknroll's post...

Private events could be cool, but with an airline it's a 99.99% chance I won't be in the right place at the right time for it. This one almost makes more sense for hotel programs. In fact, once every 3-4 years I'm in a Marriott at the right time for an elite member reception. They've been modest, but appreciated, events. Usually a Wednesday night, complimentary drinks and "better than normal C-lounge" appetizers, and sometimes a door prize or two.

Personalized promotions. Well, we saw Starwood roll this out, and most Flyertalkers would agree that the trade-off for personalization is simply getting less from the promotion. The direct comparison to the current Starwood promo is last year's Free Resort Night promotion. None of the options presented in the personalized promotion come close to the value of FRN. Of course, somewhere out there is a member who got zero value out of FRN and is happy to get a few bonus points this year. But as for me, I'd rather just gamble on the old format - sometimes I got a ton of value from the promo, sometimes I didn't.

Travel assistance: unless it's truly complimentary ground transfers on J/F tickets, it's unlikely that I'd use it. The idea of a concierge sounds interesting, but again this seems like it's more in the wheelhouse of a hotel program.