February Loyalty Market Update

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Here’s your February loyalty update for Australia and New Zealand from Ellipsis, The Loyalty Experts®. This is the first of the year and combines all the loyalty updates from December and January. We share the highlights below, subscribe to receive the detailed monthly market update. 

What matters this month

Travel loyalty is shifting. Qantas devalued (including their Emirates redemptions again). Australian Frequent Flyer now reckons their points are worth less (1.6c) than Velocity (1.7c) through ahead of Air New Zealand (1c). Credit cards used to be a key source of conversions into airline programs but American Express devalued theirs and Commonwealth Bank axed theirs (all except Virgin Velocity and the direct earn Qantas remains). Newly launched World360 from Flight Centre Travel Group added TerryWhite Chemmart and Caltex on top of existing partner Bupa and conversions from ANZ.

Key metric of the month: The ACCC is proposing that supermarket loyalty programs deliver a formal, personalised summary of value received from their loyalty program to each member every 6 months.

Australia

  • Qantas has restricted Emirates First Class reward redemptions to Silver members and above and will increase Emirates Classic Flight Reward points by 5–30% from 31 March. Following this, Australian Frequent Flyer estimates a Qantas point’s value dropped from 1.8c to 1.6c, below Virgin’s Velocity Frequent Flyer at 1.7c.

  • David Jones added 140,000 loyalty members after launching with Qantas, Telstra enabled points-for-bill discounts, AGL introduced rewards for reduced peak electricity use.

  • Flight Centre expanded World360 with Caltex and TerryWhite Chemmart.

  • American Express reduced airline points conversion rates, Commonwealth Bank restricted Awards redemptions to Virgin Velocity

  • ACCC proposed six-monthly loyalty summaries for supermarket members and the RBA will decide by March on changes to card surcharging and interchange.

New Zealand

  • The New Zealand Loyalty Association will hold its first event on 28 May in Auckland.

  • One New Zealand has added Dosh to One Wallet, offering 1% cashback via a One NZ Dosh Visa debit card while Revolut has launched its RevPoints loyalty program in New Zealand.

  • Pet Depot partnered with Cashpoints, Air New Zealand Airpoints has 5 million members and LoungePair added Auckland Airport’s Strata Lounge.

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