In the continuing saga where I make my point about how profitable airline loyalty programs are — how they aren’t cost sink-holes, how selling miles makes them money, how the ‘problem’ isn’t that they’re ‘too generous’ printing miles and should only focus on rewarding ticket revenue — comes the news that Qantas’ frequent flyer program experiences a year of record profitability in 2009. In fact, the title of the aritcle is:
Loyalty program to keep Qantas in black
That is all.
Comments are closed.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
Is this really a surprise to anyone?
Of course, the airlines can afford to be profitable on that front by limiting the redemption options at the cheap levels, essentially ensuring that they are not giving up real revenue for the sake of carrying reward passengers in most scenarios.
A major source of the QFF profitability will be their relatively new partnership with Woolworths, which means they sold far more miles than ever before.