After years of working with airlines on their digital experiences, I've noticed something interesting about loyalty programs: the economics usually work, but the member experience doesn't.
Airlines spend millions getting their loyalty program structure right. Earn rates, tier benefits, partnership networks, and redemption economics are carefully calibrated. Strategy shops pitch comprehensive program overhauls. Airlines debate whether to devalue their currency or add new elite tiers. Executives obsess over liability management and breakage rates.
But here's what gets overlooked: members don't understand what they have or how to use it.
The real problem your passengers see
Your loyalty program might offer incredible value – aspirational redemptions, exclusive benefits, a robust partner network – but if members can't figure out how to use that value, it might as well not exist.
Consider these scenarios that play out daily:
- A member has enough miles for a business class ticket to Europe but books economy because they can't find award availability
- An elite member doesn't know they have lounge access or complimentary upgrades sitting unused
- A casual member stops engaging because the app makes them feel stupid for not understanding their status
- Thousands of members let miles expire because they didn't realize they were close to a threshold
- A member completes a business class upgrade in the app and assumes it went through, but the confirmation never appears and the status doesn’t update. At the airport, they discover the upgrade didn’t process and they end up flying economy.
The problem isn't your program economics. It's the experience gap between the value you've created and members' ability to understand and capture it.
Why strategy overhauls miss the mark
When engagement metrics disappoint, the instinct could be to redesign the program itself. Change the tier structure. Adjust earn rates. Launch a new partnership.
But program redesigns are expensive, risky, and often don't solve the core issue. If members couldn't figure out the old program, making it more complex, even if theoretically better, just compounds their frustrations.
What if the problem isn't what you're offering, but how members experience and understand what you're offering?
The experience transformation alternative
Instead of touching your program economics, what if you transformed how members interact with the value you've already built?
This is exactly the challenge we tackled with IAG Loyalty. Their Avios program had solid economics and a strong partnership ecosystem, but members struggled with a fundamental task: finding and booking reward flights.
Members would log in with a travel goal, search specific routes, find no availability, grow frustrated, and give up. They didn't know that flexibility in dates or destinations could unlock options. They couldn't easily discover what was actually possible with their miles. The value existed, they just couldn't find it.
Rather than changing the program structure or availability algorithms, we focused entirely on the member experience. We built an experience that helped members discover reward flights based on their preferences, available miles, and real-time inventory – without requiring them to know exactly where they wanted to go or when.
We didn't change the economics. We didn't add inventory. We didn't modify partnerships (although we are able to improve how partners get onboarded). We simply made the existing value dramatically easier to understand and capture.
What experience transformation looks like
Product thinking, user experience design, and modern software engineering can transform loyalty program engagement without touching program economics:
Help members understand what they have
- Clear, visual status tracking that shows progress toward next tier
- Proactive notifications about benefits they're not using
- Personalized dashboards that surface relevant value
Help members discover what's possible
- Smart recommendation engines that suggest redemptions they hadn't considered
- Flexible search that shows "what can I do with my miles" rather than requiring specific dates and routes
- Benefit education delivered at the right moment in the right context
Remove friction from taking action
- Streamlined redemption flows that don't require PhD-level understanding
- Self-service tools that reduce need for call center assistance
- Cross-channel consistency so the app, website, and airport experience align
- Relentless execution quality so the tools you already have actually work – upgrade paths process correctly, status trackers calculate accurately, and confirmations appear when they should
The business case for experience over economics
When you improve member experience you typically see:
Increased redemption rates: Members who understand their options redeem 2-3x more frequently. This isn't just good for engagement – it drives partner revenue, credit card spend to earn more miles, and overall program activity.
Higher engagement metrics: Better UX drives 30-50% increases in app usage, program interaction, and cross-selling opportunities. Engaged members are more profitable members.
Improved satisfaction scores: When members can actually use their benefits, NPS rises significantly. This reduces churn and increases lifetime value.
Operational efficiency: Self-service experiences reduce call center volume for routine inquiries about benefits, redemptions, and status. The savings often pay for the digital improvements.
Faster time to value: Redesigning program economics takes 12-24 months and carries significant risk. Transforming digital experience can deliver measurable impact in 3-6 months with much lower organizational risk.
A different kind of transformation
The big strategy shops will continue to pitch program overhauls and continue to debate tier structures and earn rates. And those conversations have their place.
But there's a faster, lower-risk path to transforming loyalty program performance: fix how members experience the program you already have.
Your program economics are probably fine. Your tier structure is defensible. Your partnerships create real value. The opportunity isn't in redesigning all of that, it's in helping your members understand, discover, and confidently use what you've already built for them.
That's where product thinking, experience design, and modern software development practices create measurable business impact.
And unlike program redesigns, you can prove it works in months, not years.
Experience gaps hiding in your loyalty program?
We'd be happy to share what we've learned from transforming loyalty experiences for some of the world's largest airline groups.
