Kick Tail program revived! (was: Kick Tail program done?)
 

Just tried to give away one of my last Kick Tails. She was gracious and thanked me for it, but said they’ve discontinued the program.

Must have missed the memo.

Ditto. No drink coupons, no kick tail coupons, no notification. Not what I would call best business practice.

I rarely gave them out for an employee helping me… I like to think of myself as a low-demand customer with few needs.

I really liked to give them out when I observed an employee going above and beyond with another customer. Whether it was a problematic/angry guest and the agent kept their cool… or I noticed them going out of their way to help an unaccompanied minor, large group, or older person. Those are the times when I think someone who has an (often) thankless job might appreciate that someone saw them and thought they did a good job.

I work here and must have missed the memo as well.

We definitely still send them internally, and the webapp that we use still has a place to enter codes to redeem the printed ones.
Not sure why the FA believes the program was discontinued.

puzzling.

I've never gotten any to give out in 10 years.

I would receive some annually as an A List Preferred member. Haven’t gotten any in since the pandemic started.

Same, and I've also alternatively heard from FAs that they've either ended the program, or the internal bennies have been deval'ed to the point where nobody cares much anymore (but apparently both are apocryphal).

Sort of like the redeem points for gift cards program...

The Kick Tail program still exists, but has been decoupled from entries into a drawing for internal SWAG points or cash, so it looks different than it did a few years ago.

Post-pandemic, the program was "intentionally evolved to keep up with the times."

A residual of P2P input & recognition.

Kick Tail 2021

So it has had the opposite effect, instead of motivating employees to perform exceptionally where they might be recognized, its now we don't care if we get one? Sounds penny wise, pound foolish to me. What could this program possible cost in prizes that would be significant?

I try to send in employee compliments whenever someone does a particularly good job. I'm not sure if that makes any difference to the employee.

Based on our experience, it does matter. We had exceptional service on an ATL-BWI-BOS journey (which we ended up not taking) and my wife mentioned it on Facebook. She got a DM asking for the flight number and our full names so they could (1) verify that we were actually on the flight and (2) determine which FA and ground crew we were referring to (since we only had first names). When we had thanked the FA onboard she asked that we post it online because that gets noticed and rewarded. While it sounds self serving, the FA was only asking that we recognize the member of the ground crew who assisted and we had to insist that she also give us her name.

Kicktail program back?
 

I just received a bunch of kicktails from SW so I’m assuming they brought the program back? I don’t want to give them out if it’s discontinued…