A record of past industry shifts and platform updates.

MECCA Brands is using owned media (retail media) to build brand awareness and build long-term loyalty. David Jones is using it to talk to qualified customers interested in a particular category.

Chemist Warehouse has a $600 million-a-year Retail Media Network. Woolworths Group's equivalent business (Cartology - Part of the Woolworths Group ) accounts for about 8% of its earnings according to Jarden. Coles Group business Coles 360 makes about $250 million a year in revenue. Walmart has grown its Retail Media business at a 45% CAGR for the last 4 years with media expected to be 20% of its profit next year. It's getting margins of between 70% to 90%. Sainsbury's has grown its Retail Media Network by 15% annually for the last 4 years with a 52% margin in 2023.

Australian Telco SpinTel has launched a referral rewards program. NBN referrals deliver a $5 monthly credit and mobile a $1 monthly credit for the period of the referred customer's contract.

Foodstuffs teams up with ASB Bank, offering True Rewards redemption at grocery stores nationwide including PAK’nSAVE, New World and Four Square stores nationwide. https://lnkd.in/gSSEQgAB

Coles Group is rebranding some of its Vintage Cellars and First Choice liquor stores as Liquorland. It will move to one loyalty program across all three of the banners. Coles’ liquor business has 992 stores and growing as it takes on larger rival Dan Murphy's’s and it's successful myDan's loyalty program.

Air New Zealand Airpoints Frequent Flyer program delivered a platform upgrade last week with changes including it's 4.6 million members being able to access more of their Airpoints activity. Its aiming to provide better rewards for its high-value members through "small, important” changes.

Rebel Sport's first-half result includes the impact of a $5 million provision for deferred revenue as a result of loyalty credits issued to customers. The provision is expected to be approximately $8 million in total for the full year. The new loyalty program had a 70 basis points adverse impact on their first-half PBT margin.

Sporting goods retailer Rebel Sport had a one-off revenue deferral of Au$7.7 million from its recently revamped loyalty program. Rebel is owned by Super Retail Group (750 stores across Australia and New Zealand).

Rebel Sport relaunched its loyalty program last October. 40% of its 3.9 million active club members have earned points. Rebel's first-half results include an Au $5 million provision (and Au $8 million for the full year) for deferred revenue for loyalty credits issued to customers. Owner Super Retail Group is investing in personalisation and loyalty this year.

Rebel Sport today launched their refreshed Active loyalty program. Members can earn points when they shop and can redeem their points on any balance. They can also access member prices, exclusive offers, and VIP experiences.

Investment app raizinvest has launched Automatic Rewards delivering cashback into the Raiz account through linked cards from select brands. -

Raiz Invest has revenues of nearly Au$23 million, 308,000 active customers and funds under management of Au$1.4 billion. Its Raiz Rewards cashback program deposits cashbacks (from 1,300 retailers) into customer's investment accounts.

RACV (interviewed on Let's Talk Loyalty and Loyalty TV by Paula Thomas) have 2 million members. Their program delivers fuel discounts (which can be used in conjunction with those from Woolworths Supermarkets) as well as movie discounts. _____________________________ Loyalty Central is a unit of Ellipsis & Company - the loyalty experts.

RACQ's discounts program saved their members $22 million in the past year. It's added a new cashback program covering 100 online retailers. Accumulated cashback can be redeemed as a prepaid digital Visa card or digital retailer gift card. The new offering's delivered by Wink (program provider) Mr Yum (marketing provider) and TCN - The Card Network (gift card provider).

Air New Zealand Airpoints now has over 4.6 million members worldwide, up 14% YOY. They added 4 retail partners and Airpoints issued grew by 3%. Airpoints prepared for the launch of the iFly platform from IBS Software.

World’s best airline’ Qatar Airways move to buy a 25% stake in Virgin Australia will see Virgin's Velocity Frequent Flyer loyalty program grow. Australians flying internationally will have a wider variety of international flights directly contributing towards their Velocity status and points. https://lnkd.in/g32aFZfq

Qatar Airways will buy a 25% stake in Virgin Australia from the airline’s private equity owner Bain Capital Ventures. The deal makes Virgin’s Velocity Frequent Flyer program more competitive with Qantas Loyalty with more opportunities for Virgin customers to earn and burn across a strengthened international network.

A Qantas source has advised that Qantas Frequent Flyer will launch a ‘Reward+’ flight reward product soon. The new redemption product sits between the existing Classic Flight Rewards and Points Plus Pay, improving availability.

Qantas customers on cancelled flights will receive up to $450 in compensation after the airline admitted it misled travellers, and agreed to pay $120 million to settle a claim brought against it by the regulator. https://lnkd.in/gVsdU7pt

Qantas Loyalty, with 14 million members, brought in $1 billion in revenue in 2023 (double 2019's figure) and $220 million in operating profit. Virgin Australia's Velocity Frequent Flyer, with 11 million members, brought in $330 million in loyalty program revenue and $77 million in operating profit last financial year.

1 million New Zealanders are members of the Qantas Frequent Flyer program. From 1 July they'll have access to more reward seats with the launch of Classic Plus - a new way to use Qantas Points to book flights. Air New Zealand Airpoints last month rolled out changes to information members see in their accounts, how tier review dates work and increased their Sharepoints householding offering from 5 to 10 as part of a migration to a new loyalty platform. -

Qantas has announced the previously signalled new Classic+ seat redemption update to improve the way customers can redeem points. Classic+ can be used on international flights from July and on domestic flights from the end of this year. Redemptions will vary with airfares and will require more points during peak travelling periods (such as school holidays) and less during non-peak times. Members can convert one frequent flyer point to 1¢ for economy flights and one point to 1.5¢ for business class flights.

A major Qantas shareholder thinks it's confused the market by announcing a share buy-back, but deferring it until changes to the loyalty program were announced. Qantas will make it easier for members to book seats with points which brokers are concerned will affect the airline’s overall margins. Brokers believe the revamp provides a margin opportunity for the airline if Qantas Loyalty passes on some of its margins to the airline. Qantas Loyalty currently buys seats from the airline at cost.

Qantas Frequent Flyer will offer 20 million new rewards seats (5 million were previously available) in the biggest-ever revamp the program following it's biggest reputational crisis in recent history. The new rewards seats come's at a cost of $120 million in the 2025 financial year, mainly in lost ticket revenue. Qantas EBIT guidance for the loyalty division for the 2024 financial year is fractionally down (was $500 million and $550 million and is now $500 million and $525 million). Qantas Loyalty's underlying earnings will grow at 10% in the 2025 financial year (it was 56% in the 2023 financial year).

Qantas profit (down 28.3% to $1.25 billion) was driven partially by a deliberate reduction in margin on international travel as well as investment in its loyalty program.

Air New Zealand Airpoints added 400,000 new members in the past year pushing membership up 4.4 million (New Zealand's population is 5.3 million). Despite a profit dip Air New Zealand will continue to focus on improvements in it's services and loyalty program.

Announced today; Qantas Frequent Flyer points can be used to book Ticketek Australia events. Members will get early access to three events early next year; Jerry Seinfeld Live in Sydney, the Australia v West Indies cricket Test series in Brisbane and Lightscape Melbourne. Qantas Loyalty had considered joining KKR's bid for the business when it was for sale. Qantas Loyalty is on track for between $500 million and $600 million in earnings this financial year.

Qantas Frequent Flyer's new 20 million rewards seats offering in Classic+ is about 50% of its capacity (based on 2019 figures and a load factor of 80%). Less than 10% of the 20 million seats will be redeemed, according to Citi's analysis.

Qantas Loyalty is close to finalising a new scheme likely to be called Classic+ allowing members to convert one Frequent Flyer point to 1¢ for economy flights (and likely more generous for higher cabin classes). Steve Hui of iFLYflat - The Points Whisperer noted that Qantas had claimed this product "will help increase our earnings to $1 billion.”

Qantas Loyalty will announce improvements in coming months after the recent expansion into hotels and holiday packages as well as adding more partner airlines.

Qantas Loyalty has made some small changes with more to be announced as the first part of a $80m injection into customer experience. The changes follow a raft of complaints to a Senate Committee. Qantas is searching for a new head of its loyalty business unit to replace CEO Olivia Wirth who leaves in January.

Qantas loyalty is recruiting a Head of Financial Services Partnerships overseeing a portfolio of co-brand partners across major banking partners in Australia and internationally as well as emerging specialist and FinTech partners.

Qantas Loyalty earns AU$ 66 per member.

Qantas Loyalty's revenue increased 18% to Au$2.6 billion with an operating margin of 20% delivering underlying EBIT of Au$511 million (with a 2030 EBIT target of $1 billion). Points earned rose 15% and points redeemed rose 10%.

Qantas Loyalty racked up Au$ 270 million profit for the half year (and is aiming for full-year profit of Au$ 800 million to Au$ 1 billion in 2030). 2 million reward seats were redeemed in the last 6 months. Booking premium seats on international flights using points is still challenging and a new product will be launched in the coming weeks to address this. It's likely to be part of a Au $ 230 million investment in customer initiatives of which Au $90 million has already been invested.

Air New Zealand's frequent flyer program Airpoints has to date pegged 1 Airpoint Dollar to 1 Australian dollar for Australian members. In it's home market of New Zealand 1 Airpoint Dollar is worth 1 New Zealand Dollar. Air New Zealand's making a change and 1 Airpoint Dollar for Australian members will now be worth 1 New Zealand dollar. -

Qantas Loyalty's profit is now Au $ 511 million with the business operating at a 20% margin. There are now 16 million members (14% lift in active members). Credit card acquisition grew by 300,000 while underlying spend grew 5% (potentially driven by card churn). 100,000 Classic Plus Reward seats have been redeemed since launching a few months ago.

Qantas Loyalty is one of the airline's biggest cash cows. Loyalty for Qantas is more profitable than flying, with profit margins of 21%. Domestic is Qantas’ most profitable operational division with 17% margins (international is less than 8%).

Qantas Loyalty posted a record underlying EBIT of $511 million after the introduction of Classic Plus rewards, the biggest frequent flyer shake-up in the program’s history.

Qantas Loyalty is targeting earnings of $1 billion (up from the $451 million earned to June 30). It'll soon unveil an addition to the program likely to be called Classic+ and convert one Frequent Flyer point to 1¢ for economy flights. pay.com.au offers airline agnostic earn and has 15,000 business owner customers each paying at least $7000 a year for membership. They earn on bank-to-bank transfers and other expenses on credit cards where surcharges apply and can redeem for seats on Qantas, Virgin Australia, Singapore Airlines and Qatar Airways.

Nearly 1,000 Qantas loyalty members have had their frequent flyer accounts breached. Two contractors at Air India SATS Airport Services Private Limited (AISATS) have since been suspended for accessing and making unauthorized changes to Qantas customer bookings. The company is a JV between Air India Limited and SATS Ltd. which is Singapore's biggest ground handling company. Qantas has referred the attack to local Indian police and admits customer data has been compromised. It's yet to advise the impacted customers of the breach.

Qantas Frequent Flyer's signalled new Classic+ flight redemption option will apparently roll out from 1 July. It won't be available on Jetstar Airways and will be refundable for a fee of 6,000 points. The new scheme is likely to convert one Frequent Flyer point to 1¢ for economy flights and one point to 1.5¢ for business flights. Qantas Frequent Flyer had 15.2 million members last year, up from 14.1 million in 2022.

Embattled Qantas will spend ~$200 million to get customer service back on track and to increase loyalty points-generosity while raising fares 3.5%. There's also a potential $250 million penalty from the ACCC for advertising and selling tickets for over 8,000 flights that had already been cancelled and potentially a similar sized penalty for illegally sacking ground handling staff.

Launched this week, Qantas has introduced pay-by-the-month lounge access at $99 for 28 days of lounge access. It's historically offered 1 year packages at $699.

Qantas Points required for a one business class trip to Europe have increased 10-fold from 139,000 in 2019 to 1.2 million points today.

Air New Zealand Airpoints have added Baby On The Move (14 stores) and Fable Hotels and Resorts as Aipoints earn partners.

Qantas Loyalty's home loan with 100,000 Qantas points annually is more cost-effective over 5 years on an example $1 million home loan (repayments between $233,755 and $238,592) than a Big 4 bank ($250,623). It's moderately less cost-effective than an ultra-low variable loan ($229,854).

Since Qantas Frequent Flyer launched the new Classic Plus booking in April, members have redeemed 10.7 billion points on international Qantas flights - a third more than used before the launch of Classic Plus. -

Bank Macquarie Group’s analysts have called Qantas Frequent Flyer possibly the leading frequent flyer program globally. Qantas members are racking up 200 billion points a year. Points issuance, which outpaces points redemption, grew 13% in the six months to December and 48% last financial year.

Qantas Frequent Flyer's biggest revamp in its 35-year history, Classic+, promises 20 million new rewards seats and at a cost to Qantas of Au$ 120 million. Citi believes only 10% to 20% of these seats will be redeemed and, hence, a lower cost to Qantas of $70m. UBS believes the impact of Classic+ will be immaterial to earnings and cash flow.

Qantas Frequent Flyer has added Stampix as a redemption option.

Qantas has completed the acquisition of TripADeal with Au$450m in revenue and 150 employees. It acquired a minority stake in 2022 and has now bought the remaining 49% for $211m. TripADeal will sit under Qantas Loyalty with about 80 per cent of the travel company’s customers Qantas frequent flyers. Since the integration in 2022, billions of points have been earned and used through TripADeal packages. -

Qantas will increase Qantas Club membership fees between 17% and 80% from 18th April ahead of a rumoured more affordable monthly subscription-based model.

Qantas Frequent Flyer is researching a pay-as-you-go Qantas Club monthly subscription. Qantas Club memberships are currently 1,2 or 4-year packages sold for between $600 and $2,000 with a one-time $99 joining fee.

1 billion Qantas Frequent Flyer points had been used within a few days of the launch of the new Classic+ redemption option. The number of Qantas points redeemed tripled 24 hours after the announcement. London, Singapore, Tokyo, Queenstown, and Los Angeles were the most popular destinations with 50% of total Classic+ reward seat bookings for travel in premium cabins.

Adore Beauty Group's subscription program is designed "to support loyalty and retention and improve average order frequency.”

We’re compiling the definitive reference and market map for all customer loyalty solutions available to Australian Loyalty Managers. If you're a loyalty solution targetting Australia, make sure we know about and include you. There's already 165 different vendors across 33 categories and growing.  The Australian loyalty market is worth US$4bn and growing at 13% annually. Email simon.rowles@ellipsisandco.com

A month after the launch of Qantas’ new Classic Plus reward seats, over 6.5 billion points have been used in four weeks to book international flights, 35 per cent more than the monthly average. https://lnkd.in/eSumChws

New Qantas CEO will need to replace departing head of loyalty Olivia Wirth (whom Hudson pipped for the CEO role). Qantas Loyalty is an Au$1 billion operation with more than 15 million members.

Qantas Business Rewards now offers a 10% saving on international flights with Qantas and oneworld Alliance airlines. There's an estimated 2.5 million small- to medium-sized (SME) businesses with Qantas saying 1 in 5 SMEs participate in Qantas Business Rewards (implying a member base of 500,000 members).

The new Privacy Amendment Bill has had it's first reading in Parliament with final submissions due by June 14th. Proposed changes will mean organisations who collect personal information from other sources than the individual will need to update their privacy policies and ensure any automated systems are amended to include notifying individuals that their data has been collected. Organisations will need to plan exactly how this information can be made available to individuals, particularly in situations where you do not have a direct relationship with the individual.

Priceline is now live in the Wesfarmers OneDigital OnePass program. Priceline Sister Club loyalty program members who link to OnePass get free delivery on some orders, 365-day returns on some items and tier members earn 2 points per dollar spent.

Gift card company Prezzee's reported an Au$40 million loss down from an Au$6 million loss for the prior period. Cash receipts were up at Au$87 million compared to Au$38 million the year before. Interestingly, if a gift card is not used within the first four months, it is unlikely to be used.

Australian-based Prezzee's customers buy and send digital gifts from ~1,400 retailers ranging from Coles Group in Australia to SEPHORA in the USA (where over half its revenue comes from). It's been hit by significant fraud in the USA on up to 30% of transactions (that levels 0.3% to 0.7% in Australia). The fraud's driven a statutory loss of Au$79.2 m for the 18 months to December (after an Au$38.9m loss in the previous financial year). Total card sales were $3.4bn in 2023 after selling $1.1bn in 2022. -

Australian founded gift card company Prezzee has cut 10% of its workforce. Prezzee has focused on the AU$500 billion global gift card market (Australia's is worth AU$5.5 billion). It had been chasing a valuation of AU$1 billion and an ASX listing and planning to grow to 400 people. Prezzee lost its London based CEO Jaimie Samaha last month. Samaha joined from Mastercard Loyalty in February last year and last month left to become CEO of UK based loyalty provider Reward.

Retail holding company Premier Investments is likely to sell Smiggle & Peter Alexander and be managed for its cash brands and a bolstered loyalty program to drive sales.

Premier Investments is adding a loyalty program that will be up and running by the end of this year as a major transformation of the business. Premier owns Just Jeans, Jay-Jays, Portmans, Dotti and Jacqui E and will divest Smiggle and Peter Alexander.

Accor and Woolworths Group today announced a new partnership, enabling members of Accor’s lifestyle loyalty programme, ALL - Accor Live Limitless, to transfer their points to the Everyday Rewards program. https://lnkd.in/gA7YxAtF

Premier Investments, LLC - owners of apparel brands Just Jeans, Dotti, Jay Jays, Portmans and Jacqui-e - will launch a new loyalty program called Just Shop cross all brands in October 2024. An existing Australian loyalty program launched in 2006 and available in Just Jeans has 1.8 million members. The new program will be available across Australia and New Zealand and aims to encourage cross shopping between the five brands.

Premier Investments, LLC - owners of apparel brands Just Jeans, Dotti, Jay Jays, Portmans and Jacqui-e - will launch a new loyalty program called Just Shop cross all brands in October 2024. An existing Australian loyalty program launched in 2006 and available in Just Jeans has 1.8 million members. The new program will be available across Australia and New Zealand and aims to encourage cross shopping between the five brands.

Michael Hill's Brilliance loyalty program uses predictive analytics to personalise communications. Loyalty accounts for 75% to 85% of sales, and the program now has 2 million members across Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Partnerships to reward customers are now on the cards.

Card Linking leader PokitPal (integrations to Visa, Mastercard, eftpos Payments Australia) now also have access to Open Banking data having been accredited by the ACCC. Pokitpal clients include Virgin Money Australia, Raiz Invest, Suncorp Group and The NRMA. - Pokitpal Open Banking release : https://lnkd.in/gpYUZKKj

The 5 year contract renewal New Zealand founded loyalty platform Plexure struck with McDonald's has been part of a 170% increase in parent TASK's share price. Plexure's now rolling out McDonald’s Taiwan. Previously listed on the NZX, Task is now resident on the ASX. Plexure provides the bulk of Task's revenue ($28.9m versus Task’s $7.1m).

New Zealand loyalty platform VoucherMob won at the NZ Hi-Tech Awards in 2011, became VMob, rebranded as Plexure in 2016, listed on the NZX Limited, had a $5 million investment from McDonald's in 2019 (who became a shareholder too) and bought ASX listed hospitality and loyalty provider TASK in 2021. This week Task agreed to be acquired by US-based PAR Technology.

New Zealand founded loyalty platform Plexure (now part of TASK) has 330 million users on the platform.

Mi3Australia report Pizza Hut Australia has been slapped with a $2.5m fine for breaching spam laws. Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) investigation revealed that Pizza Hut sent 5,941,109 texts and emails to customers who had not consented or had withdrawn their consent to receive marketing. Additionally, the company sent 4,364,971 marketing messages without an option to unsubscribe. https://lnkd.in/dPPQe7NX

Elevate Loyalty & Pay2Elevate today launched new division Pay2Elevate offering a one tap loyalty and payment card solution, digital cards and tickets in mobile wallets and QR payments integrating multiple payments into a single scan.

Accor introduces HERA – a new loyalty program for travel advisors. The program replaces the Group’s former Famous Agents program, with all previous travel advisor data, history, and Reward Points seamlessly migrated to the new platform. https://lnkd.in/gXdyUM_d

Pascale Helyar-Moray OAM of Grow My Money won Female Fintech Leader Of The Year at at last week's Fintech Awards with Loyalty Now winning Best Innovation In Rewards And Loyalty.

Palantir Technologies is up over 30% since this announcement 5 days ago. Coles' stated that the focus is on operational efficiency and workforce planning. Surely it's only a matter of time before this capability is also turned towards #loyaltymarketing and #dataanalytics ? Don't be 5 days behind the news, follow Loyalty Central | Australia and get all the latest in your LinkedIn feed before you'll see it anywhere else for everything #loyalty #platforms #paymentsolutions #paymentinnovation #dataanalytics

POLITIX Menswear re-platformed their Politix Plus loyalty program to Antavo Loyalty Cloud supported by Deloitte Digital, digital commerce consultancy Tryzens Global, digital agency Bower House Digital and digital engineering provider Persistent Systems.

POLITIX Menswear has selected Antavo Loyalty Cloud to re-platform its Politix Plus loyalty program originally launched in early 2023. Country Road Group is owned by South African based Woolworths (not the Australian enterprise) and includes Politix, Country Road, Mimco and Trenery. The re-platforming comes as rival multi-brand apparel group Premier Investments signals a soon to be launched group loyalty program.

More consolidation in restaurant loyalty. Australian-listed TASK (which delivers loyalty for Starbucks in Australia and globally for McDonald's in several markets) has received an Au$320 million takeover bid from Au$1.8bn market cap US-based PAR Technology.

Australian-born family business TASK has received a takeover bid of $310 million from PAR Technology. Advised by Latimer Partners, Task was acquired by Plexure (the digital name behind the McDonald's’s app) for $120 million in 2021. The deal gave Task shareholders 43% ownership in Plexure.

The Australian Banking Association (ABA) found banks spent Au$ 1.5 billion over the last 6 years to make Open Banking (or the Consumer Data Right - CDR) work but only 0.3% of customers use it (or about 197,000 active arrangements). The top 5 CDR recipients (Frollo, WeMoney, Flamingo, Beforepay Group and CashnGo Loans) make up 3/4 of total data shares. regime. But Basiq has helped about 930,000 Australians share their data via the consumer data right. More data-sharing arrangements on Basiq’s platform are now done through CDR, which has better connectivity performance, over the prior method of screen scraping. -

30 May is the deadline for the country's four major banks ANZ, ASB Bank, Bank of New Zealand and Westpac New Zealand to be ready for open banking.

Open Banking can increase customer loyalty for banks in New Zealand. Some solutions are already in the market ahead of legislation expected within a year (the Customer and Product Data Bill). Payments NZ's report released today discusses progress and developing options.

A small number of oneworld Alliance airlines (Qantas is a member) will offer cross-alliance upgrades to premium economy, business and first class starting later this year. It's been a long time coming (Qantas surveyed its members on this in 2019) and rival Star Alliance has had this for some time.

Accenture Song has acquired Melbourne-based martech consultancy The Lumery. The acquisition strengthens Accenture's personalisation, CRM and loyalty capabilities.

Australia founded Elevate Loyalty has launched OneTap Group with external investment and a focus on the Australian and UK markets. OneTap turns a payment card into a loyalty card through card linking. OneTap has partnered with PokitPal, Fidel API and Lexer.

One New Zealand (previously Vodafone) has launched a loyalty program called One Wallet. Customers can earn One Wallet Dollars by trading in an old phone, taking out a new mobile or broadband plan or setting up a direct debit. Dollars earned can be redeemed for a new phone. Customers must be on an eligible consumer pay-monthly plan.

The chief executive of Qantas Loyalty since 2018, Olivia Wirth, has resigned and will leave in February. She was considered one of the key candidates to replace Alan Joyce as CEO (that role went to Qantas's ex-CFO Vanessa Hudson). Wirth was last week nominated for the MYER board which is focused on growing the customer loyalty business.