Featuring: Jeffrey Goh, CEO Gulf Air Group / Benjamin Lipsey, Head of Flying Blue Air France-KLM / Kristi Gole, Head of Strategy, Global Hotel Alliance / Andrea Pinna, Global SVP Loyalty Strategy, Radisson Hotel Group / Shyam Shah, CEO, Loyalty Juggernaut, USA/ Peter Kisbye, CEO, Loyal Solutions, Denmark / Chuck Ehredt, CEO Currency Alliance, Spain / Ani Elmaoglu, CEO, Ketchup, Turkey / Tony Piedade, Deputy Chair, GLO / CEO, Redwing Consultants, UK / Iain Pringle, Partner, New World Loyalty, UK
GLO
Jeffrey Goh, CEO of Gulf Air Group, ex-CEO Star Alliance: I’d say I will spend it on experiences. A million miles or million points go very, very far. So, there will be multiple places I imagine I’ll be spending these points and miles for multiple experiences – this could be hot air ballooning, or this could be parachuting, but it’s all about experiences.
Kristi Gole, Head of Startegy, Global Hotel Alliance: Your mind naturally goes to “Okay, well, it’s something I would never do” or “it’s too far away from my normal, practical reality and the first thing – okay, a million points.” Then it’s like well, where would I usually not go? Like what about Maldives or Mauritius? My mind instantly goes to islands that are really expensive and far away. Because I’m here in Dallas, Texas. So that’s where my mind goes, but then I think “really? would I?” and “maybe”, but you know what I really want to do is what before I had a million points in line, what I’m going to do next year. I personally love Italy we go there quite often. Sicily is a part of Italy I haven’t seen, so I’m the type who needs to see different places. But that could be within the same country. Sicily is a place that my family and I are going to this summer and so I think with a million points we can get us all there. We would have a great time and go to many different places. We’ll also have family and friends come with us. So, I would still do what I was planning to do in the first place but do it better and bigger.
Ben Lipsey, Head of Flying Blue, Air France – KLM: A million points isn’t what it was. Back in the day when I was a very loyal SPG Starwood Preferred Guest member, and I would do anything to earn my points and so a million points to start with is very different from a million points today. I still think no matter where you’re collecting, that the best value for points tends to be on the higher end of the five-star hotels and the first and business-class cabins on flights. A lot of the time people are willing to spend points to stay at aspirational hotels or travel in these aspirational cabins, which helps them dream. The question is, how do I reward you in a way that makes you dream? So, if I had a million points, that’s what I would do. I would probably buy a first-class ticket and book a five-star hotel stay.
Andrea Pinna, Global VP Loyalty Strategy, Radisson Hotels: Well, with 1 million points I first like to have a holiday in one of our resorts or the excellent Radisson Collection around the world. Or maybe why not discover incredible India from the north to the south where we have more than 100 hotels there. But something very important for Radisson Hotel Group, are promises related to Radisson’s responsible business pillars: Think people, think community, think Planet. I will use for sure 1 million points to offset our carbon footprint in this very key moment for our world. This is a unique and key aspect of our rewards programme. Radisson Rewards supports projects to help reverse climate change and promote sustainability. But also think community: We have an incredibly strong partnership with SOS children donation. So our members can use the points to support also these incredibly important activities.
Tony Piedade, CEO Redwings Consultants (UK): I love travelling and I have a young family. I think for me it would be to place it with an airline. For those number of points, I would take the longest holiday in the warmest possible place for the family. I think perhaps that is a reflection of where we always see value and very traditionally, loyalty is it’s that escapism, it’s that relaxation, it’s the money can’t buy experience. So, if I had those points, definitely with an airline and definitely one that could take me somewhere warm for a long time.
Iain Pringle, Partner, New World Loyalty (UK):
The million-point question is deeply psychological because I’ve seen many programmes where people have many millions, many more than a million points, and lots of people who have that don’t spend it. If you find some time and haven’t watched it already, watch the classic “Up in the air”. In there, there is a classic case of someone who has millions of points and won’t use them because millions of points give you the status that you think you’re a millionaire you can do with what you want. So it’s surprising – the amount of people who have it but don’t spend it. If I was going to spend it – I’ve moved into a new house, and I would spend it all on the house or fuel discounts for this year. But that’s just me. I’m Scottish.
But it’s a very, very interesting question about what people would spend. And in fact, I was at a dinner once many years ago with someone who literally had millions and millions of points. And I said, “why would you not spend them?” You have this thing called “final seat availability’, where you could literally buy a seat on every plane if you so wished, but the value would be very bad. And when I said that he could literally fly on almost every plane every week for the rest of his life, he said it’s bad value to take those. So who knows? Loyalty is a psychological exercise. It’s not necessarily an exercise of spending points.
Ani Emanoglu, Ketchup Loyalty (Turkey): Actually, I would like to answer this question from the business side. I if had 1 million points, I would invest it all in predictive analytics and machine learning.
Chuck Ehredt, CEO Currency Alliance (Spain): Well, if I had a million points in various loyalty programmes or in one loyalty programme, it would depend a lot on whether it’s a hotel programme or an airline programme. Because you can get nice hotel rooms for 20 to 30,000 points per night across almost all the chains, a million points would be quite a long vacation I’d be able to take. With airline programmes, I can fly in business class across the Atlantic for 150,000 points. So a million points might give me six or seven trips that I’d be able to take, but I don’t think I can take that much time off work. So it’d be fantastic to have this problem of trying to spend a million points but I don’t think I could spend a million points because I enjoy my job and I want to be close to my family. They are either at university or I’m busy working and we just can’t take that much time off.
Peter Kisbye, CEO Loyal Solutions (Denmark): I would get a first-class ticket on Etihad and try the residence cabin.
Shyam Shah, CEO Loyalty Juggernaut (USA): Well, if I had 1 million points, I would perhaps look to redeem those points into some cool vacation package. I think we all deserve a vacation. And we have been homebound times to COVID for quite some time. And I think it’s time for us to go out and my very preferred avenue to spend those points would be on a great vacation package for myself and my family.
