Aeroplan, Canada's premier coalition loyalty program announced that it is introducing Destination Miles, a new service exclusive to Aeroplan Members and operated by its affiliate Destination Miles Booking Service Inc., that will allow members to use cash to book hotel stays, car rentals and vacation packages online or by phone through the Destination Miles Travel Desk.  In addition, members will be able to earn miles for every purchase by booking through Destination Miles. In celebration of the launch, members can earn 3 miles for every $1 spent for a limited time.

"This new initiative is excellent news for our members as now members can use their Aeroplan Miles for a flight and purchase a hotel stay, car rental or vacation package at the same time," said David Klein, Vice President, Marketing & Innovation, Aeroplan. "With Destination Miles, our group proposes a unique offering in the world of travel which will give Aeroplan Members more choice and flexibility when making their travel arrangements."

Carrefour, the world’s second largest retailer, operating in the region through a joint venture with Majid Al Futtaim Group, has launched a loyalty programme in the UAE offering points on purchases made at its stores.

“We are launching our MyCLUB loyalty programme - the first of its kind for the hypermarket sector in the region,” said Henry Changeux, GCC country head of Carrefour.

“This programme, combined with our increasing store footprint and continued commitment to value, quality, convenience and choice, is placing Carrefour at the forefront of the retail industry in the Middle East.”

The Carrefour MyCLUB loyalty card is free of charge and is available upon request in any Carrefour Hypermarket and Carrefour Market supermarket for customers over 21 years of age.

It is one loyalty account number per household and the subscriber will be issued with four physical cards – one larger card for the subscriber and three smaller cards for other members of the household.

Best Western is giving its rewards program members a jump start on their summer vacations with a $50 Best Western Travel Card®. Now through June 3rd, Best Western Rewards® members who register for the promotion and stay with Best Western three separate times will earn a promotional $50 USD Best Western Travel Card, which can be used like cash at any of the chain's 4,100 hotels worldwide before November 1, 2012.

"We realize gas prices are high, and we want families to be able to enjoy their summer vacations," said Dorothy Dowling, senior vice president of marketing and sales for Best Western International.  "We hope this promotion and bonus Travel Card will encourage them to hit the road and spend quality time together, whether it's a local 'staycation' or an exotic locale."

Loyalty 360 and SAS have  delivered an eye opening study that repoints the focus on how companies are treating their loyalty program investment.  To us it suggests that the current economic environment is also skewing how companies are seeing their loyalty programs, allowing them to fall into the same short-term, survival oriented approach as most marketing programs these days.

To us, the study also suggests keeping a few key principles of running loyalty programs front of mind at all times:

1. Defining loyalty correctly -- keeping the more strategic goals of reducing churn and shifting more customers to (NPS style) promoters rather than increasing customer spend

2. Social media is key -- the most active and expressive customer feedback is happening on social media, and brand must be turned in to if their goal is sustainable loyalty

3. An equal focus on data -- gathering data from loyalty program and integrating with data from other sources represents the another big ROI opportunity from loyalty programs (which fill the gaps in customer data gathered from other VOC efforts).

FreebeeCards, an Iowa based startup, offers merchants a surprisingly strong option 'straight out the door'.  The company is launching with a strong mix of communication, data gathering, rewards and gamification tools to balance strong incentives with merchant empowerment.  We highlight this company because it represents a strong alternative to daily deals, which have become a pervasive yet flawed tool in the arsenal of smaller merchants. 

Unlike daily deals, which use high discounts to generate PR buzz, FreebeeCards doesn't 'give away the farm' to generate visibliity.  It leverages gamification (in the form of variable valued mystery incentive cards) and immediately puts a lot of power in the hands of the merchant.  That power comes in the form of strong customer behavior data, the ability to generate targeted messaging campaigns and all the benefits of a virtual gift card (ranging from reduced adminstrative costs to real time usage data).

The inclusion of a digital tablet in the startup kit suggests that FreebeeCards 'gets it' -- that merchants are looking to be empowered in their interactions with prospects and customers.  The anywhere-anytime access that a tablet gives to a merchant lets them experience that empowerment 24/7 (if they want to) by tracking the success of programs and gaining ever increasing insights in to customer behavior.  

The contrast to daily deals is clear -- empowerment while creating incentives for new customers is clearly the better option.

Although we weren't initially fans of the complex earning structure Air Asia's BIG loyalty program, their unorthodox approach to branding their rewards demonstrates a wider strategy for leveraging partnerships more effectively. 

As can be seen in the excerpt below, Air Asia's "BIG" branding plays well with the more energetic messaging surrounding retail partners like KL Sogo retail chain. While this might seem like a small thing, it represents a 'big' (no pun intended) opportunity for enhanced ROI in the form of greater brand visibility. 

In cases like these, the question for loyalty program designers is:

Can we do something with our branding and packaging so partners want to use our brand more frequently -- rather than simply the occasional mention as is normally the case?

KL Sogo is leveraging BIG's energetic brand name 5 times in a single sentence -- because it fits well with an energetic B2C retail campaign.  The result is increased brand visibility for Air Asia with no further investment.

Revitas, a leading revenue management solutions provider, has announced its latest customer engagement strategy and it impresses us with its customer centricity and depth.  The effort is well thought out, extensive and shows commitment a multiple levels to the goal of customer engagement.

Looking at the problem beyond just customer feedback, Revitas choose three key angles on customer engagement:

1. Driving Customer Experience

Creating an enhanced version of user groups, Revitas has undertaken summits based on its users' industries.  These meetings deliver the opportunity for customers to maximize their ROI from their investment in Revitas products.   By creating ideas sharing opportunities mixed with educational sessions, users gain access to thought leadership, best practices and product training specific to their industry.

2. VOC in Product Development

All great products need to continue to improve -- particularly as customers' requirements continue to change and evolve based upon business and external developments.  Revitas Product Councils go beyond product surveys to allowing customers to share a) use cases and b) suggested product changes.  Revitas is creating a balanced investment level by shelling out the costs for 1 in person summit while also holding one virtual session per year to economically capture input more than once per year.

3. C-Level Connection With Customers

Customer Advisory boards represent another focused component -- particularly because they seek to connect with the C-level leadership at key customers and gain a strategic view of customer experiences and requirement in the business processes that Revitas addresses.  Access to industry trends, regulatory predictions and expected changes in user companies' business models all will help Revitas stay ahead of the curve in its product development efforts.

Aside from the specific impact created by each of these components, Revitas will establish a clear impression with its customers -- that it is highly commitment to engaging, empowering and giving voice to its customers in its evolution as a solution provider.

Harbortouch, a leading national supplier of touch-screen point-of-sale (POS) systems, announced three new versions of its industry-leading free POS system program for the retail, spirits, and convenience store industries. The new software packages offer numerous time and money saving features to accommodate the industry specific needs of these markets. The three new versions are titled Harbortouch Retail, Harbortouch Spirits, and Harbortouch C-Store.

Harbortouch Retail is designed for retail environments of any size and includes a color/size/style matrix that allows merchants to build custom attribute matrices for a particular piece of apparel. This function helps to streamline order selection for a more efficient process. Additional features include gift receipts, registries, rentals and consignment functions, and layaway.

Harbortouch Spirits offers many of the same benefits of the retail system but adds some features to meet the unique needs of wine, beer and liquor stores. A key functionality of this version of the POS software is an age verification process that prompts cashiers to ask for consumer identification and alerts them if the consumer can legally purchase age-restricted products. The system can also differentiate between single drinks and multi-packs when checking out customers.

Parago, a leading provider of end-to-end engagement management programs for consumers, sales channels and employees, announced that its proprietary prepaid reward ordering portal, PROP™,  has achieved significant milestones in a mere six months since its launch. PROP has attracted dozens of new clients to Parago, and has distributed 500,000 Visa® prepaid cards totaling $20 million in issued or loaded funds.

PROP, an acronym for Parago Reward Ordering Portal, provides large organizations a central destination for ordering, loading, activating and customizing Visa® prepaid cards for incentives and rewards. The one-stop online destination is a customizable portal that makes the prepaid incentive procurement process simple for every business department and provides the much needed controls and ability to audit that corporations require. Whether it is a short run of cards used by Human Resources for employee recognition, or thousands of cards for a large-scale consumer incentive program, PROP enables all departments within an enterprise to procure prepaid incentives through a few quick clicks.