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Här är en lite mer ingående förklaring om affärsmodellen för Qantas frequent flyer program. Rena sedelpressen. Från Sydney Morning Herald. Hela artikeln finns i länken.
Traditionally, loyalty programs have been treated as cost centres; airline customers would earn points buying flights from the airline then redeem them for free flights or upgrades. It was seen as a necessary price to pay to cultivate ''sticky'' customers for the airlines which pioneered these schemes.This changed in 2008 when Qantas ventured into loyalty-program-as-profit-centre territory and set up Frequent Flyer as a separate division within the group.Under this model, points can be redeemed for goods and services offered by ''coalition partners'' and points can be earned by spending money with these vendors.Unlike virtual dollars being exchanged between Frequent Flyer and the Qantas airline business, external partners pay cold hard cash for the points they then hand out to their customers. Qantas, as the banker of this currency, is almost able to print its own money, issuing points to partners and profiting on the difference between what it charges for them and what it costs to redeem them. The airline has it down to a science.
While partners account for 63 per cent of points issued, 90 per cent of the points are redeemed for Qantas services. Qantas, as a repository of the cash until the points are spent, also gets the benefit of this cash balance for the two years it usually takes members to redeem points.
According to Macquarie, around 8 per cent of the points expire without being used. This goes straight to the bottom line.
Partners that collectively pay hundreds of millions of dollars a year to be part of the program still benefit from what Macquarie describes as growing the program's ''share of wallet''.
''A more engaged member would potentially direct their retail shopping to Woolworths, refilling their car at Caltex, using an Optus contract, taking out travel insurance with Travelex, life insurance with OnePath and paying for it all on their [Frequent Flyer]-branded credit card,'' it says.
The chief executive of Qantas Frequent Flyer, Simon Hickey, was keen to highlight the benefits for its coalition partners, using banks as an example. ''For the banks, it's about attracting customers to that particular credit card, it's about retaining those customers for longer. It's ultimately about the banks getting customers to use their product and it's good for the bank,'' he says.
Read more:
Loyalty plan puts more than bums on seats
