While Southwest Airlines continues to grapple with a glitch that’s denying its top tier of frequent flyers prime boarding assignments, the carrier is offering up another apology by way of free rewards miles. [More]
loyalty programs
JCPenney To Revamp Loyalty Program, Make It Easier To Earn Rewards
By 7.10.17
If you’re a frequent shopper at JCPenney, listen up: The retailer is poised to debut a new, revamped loyalty program making it easier for customers to earn free stuff more quickly and more often, as the retailer seeks to pad its bottomline amid store closures. [More]
Have Loyalty Programs Made Airlines Complacent About Customer Service?
By 6.9.17
If you show your loyalty to an airline by continually flying that carrier (and maybe using their co-branded credit card), you might expect that this would result in better customer service. However, one top airline executive thinks the industry’s reliance on loyalty rewards programs are actually making customer service more impersonal. [More]
Loyalty Programs Make More Money For Airlines Than Ticket Sales
By 3.31.17
You might think think of frequent flier miles as a giveaway for airlines; carriers rewarding loyal customers with free or discounted travel. However, these programs are now a bigger money-maker than airfare for U.S. airlines. [More]
American Airlines Fixes Bug That Kept Online Upgrades In Limbo
By 2.7.17
One of the key advantages to being part of an airline membership program is the ability to upgrade your seat. But elite passengers in American Airlines’ AAdvantage program haven’t been able to upgrade ahead of time online for the last few months, an issue that the carrier says has now been fixed. [More]
Chipotle Giving Loyalty Program Members More Than $20M In Free Catering
By 9.30.16
Chipotle customers who joined the chain’s temporary loyalty program — a program aimed at winning back customers after a spate of food-borne illness outbreaks at its restaurants — are finally getting a reward, in the form of free catered food. [More]
Citi Can’t Stop AT&T From Saying “Thanks”… For Now
By 8.15.16
Two months ago, Citi sued AT&T — not over some huge multimillion-dollar account or bad business deal, but over AT&T’s daring use of the word “Thanks” in a new loyalty program. The bank asked a federal court to bar the phone giant from using the disputed term pending the outcome of the case, but the judge has shot that request down. [More]
Polls Show Chipotle’s Customers Still Haven’t All Come Back
By 7.15.16
Burrito eatery Chipotle needs something very important to recover financially from its recent food safety crisis: it needs all of its customers to come back, and keep coming back. Since eradicating foodborne pathogens from its restaurants, Chipotle has tried offering everyone free burritos, buy-one-get-one promotions, and a loyalty program to bring customers in. It’s sort of working. [More]
Birchbox Subscribers Are Upset About Changes To Review Points Program
By 6.15.16
The appeal of the subscription box Birchbox isn’t just getting a box full of personal-care goodies in the mail every month: it’s also reviewing the samples that you receive to earn points toward buying full-size versions of those goodies. Now a change to that system is proving very controversial, and some customers want to quit the service because of it. [More]
Chipotle To Expand Chorizo, Consider Loyalty Program To Bring In New And ‘Lapsed’ Customers
By 4.27.16
Last year, Chipotle’s food-safety crisis led the burrito eatery’s business to plummet, with same-store sales plunging as low as 37% in December 2015. In 2016, though, there have been no reported outbreaks, and the company has been mailing and texting out coupons to draw old and new customers. The massive giveaways of food are now over, and the chain is moving on to new promotional methods, including buy one, get one free entrées and potentially a loyalty program. [More]
Starbucks’ New Rewards Program Starts Today
By 4.12.16
Today is the day. The day that Starbucks rolls out its new rewards program which bases loyalty points on how much customers spend, not on the frequency of purchases. [More]
Air France Offering Younger Customers A 30% Discount With New Rewards Program
By 4.7.16
Here’s something we haven’t seen in the U.S. yet: Air France is intent on wooing the younger crowd of fliers, and is willing to bestow perks on them for being loyal passengers with a new rewards card. [More]
Starbucks Confirms: Loyalty Rewards Members Will Now Earn Points For Every Dollar Spent
By 2.22.16
Confirming what we reported last week, Starbucks announced this morning that it’s changing how its members earn loyalty rewards points in its My Starbucks rewards program: instead of earning a star per every transaction on anything you buy — food, coffee, mugs, etc. — starting in April, members will earn two stars for each dollar they spend. [More]
It Looks Like Starbucks May Be Changing How Customers Earn Loyalty Program Rewards Points
By 2.19.16
UPDATE #2: And there we have it. Starbucks confirmed the changes Monday morning during a phone call with press and investors, and the new system will be exactly what we thought it would be. [More]
How You Can Actually Save Money At An Outlet Mall
By 12.14.15
Just because something is for sale in an outlet store, that doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily a good deal, or even that it’s cheaper than the item’s retail price. It is possible to save money while outlet-shopping, though: you just have to know when to shop, where in the store to shop, and to be savvy about programs that your local mall may offer. [More]
Sephora Will Get Back To Angry Rewards Customers In Two Weeks (Update: Or A Month)
By 8.12.15
The Epic Rewards event was supposed to be an opportunity for customers who had accumulated a large number of points in the Sephora’s loyalty program to cash them in for valuable items. The question is: was it a rewards redemption or a sweepstakes that only people who have spent thousands at Sephora could enter? The company has promised to make things right with their customers, but are asking customers to give them 10 business days to figure out how. [More]
Starbucks Teams Up With Lyft To Give Drivers, Riders Extra Points Through Its Rewards Program
By 7.23.15
Take a Lyft, earn a free cup of coffee? Well, something like that anyway. Starbucks and ride-sharing service Lyft teamed up on Wednesday to unveil a new arrangement that gives customers – and drivers – of the car service extra perks through the coffee chain’s loyalty program. [More]
Sears Leadership Still Convinced That Rewards Program Will Save The Company
By 6.8.15
Shop Your Way Rewards is not a difficult program to join. The process consists of giving your e-mail address to a cashier at Sears or Kmart, and…that’s pretty much it. It doesn’t cost anything. Yet the leadership of Sears Holdings Corporation remains fixed on the program and the idea of having “members” rather than customers, and we still can’t figure out why. [More]
