How to solve the problem of being prone to expiry and redeeming membership points of airline hotels?

How long have you not used the airline's mileage points to exchange air tickets?

Before the epidemic, for users with frequent travel needs, it is the best choice to join the airline or hotel. This can accumulate points to exchange for free air tickets and hotel accommodation to reduce travel costs.

However, due to the epidemic, the demand for travel in users has declined sharply, and most of the points accumulated by users cannot complete the exchange of air tickets or hotel accommodation. A large amount of points accumulated by users before the epidemic may expire from zero.

The airline hotel points are easy to expire and redeem, and will eventually lead to a large number of loyal users lose. In this regard, what should be paid attention to when formulating regular passenger/membership plans? What new gameplay can there be?

Focusing on the development of the aircraft and hotel frequent passenger plans under the epidemic, the recent travel news is based on the theme of "What is the value of the membership plan?" Expert Zeng Zhihui and Hao Dahai, a blogger of senior member system, started discussions. This travel news is chaired by Li Chao, CEO of Global Brigade.

Li Chao: Affected by the epidemic and prevention and control policies, the frequency of travel of passengers has been significantly reduced. Does the proportion of frequent passengers' reservations to airline hotels? What are the challenges of the decline in passenger travel frequency to the members of the airline hotel?

Lou Kan: I believe that the decline in the number of frequent passengers in the airline company is more serious than the hotel. From the perspective of the hotel, it is undeniable that the decrease in the number of tourists under the epidemic has led to a decline in the total turnover of the hotel.

The challenge is that in the context of the epidemic, the online traffic and information we can contact are complicated. We must pay attention to "shaking hands" with C -side members again, that is, re -touching members. Judging from the experience of Huazhu, we will consolidate the foundation of digitalization and use digital tools according to different scenarios to make hotel membership management more active.

Zeng Zhihui: Because of the epidemic, I have been abroad in the past two years. At present, most countries have returned to the trajectory of normal life, and the border is basically open. From the global perspective, although the overall travel volume has decreased, the proportion of frequent passengers or membership travel has not decreased much year -on -year; but from the perspective of income contribution, due to the current recovery of international long routes, the long airline contribution of frequent passengers contributes The proportion is relatively large, so the revenue contribution caused by frequent passengers has decreased a lot.

There are three challenges: First, most members cannot implement the frequent passenger plan because of the epidemic, but the points and rights of regular passengers are sometimes effective. Due to the changes in the travel needs of epidemic passengers, they have given priority to actual travel needs on the selection of airlines, instead of valued the frequent passenger plan of which aircraft company belonging to this flight; The airline has a certain income contribution. How to maintain the income of the frequent passenger plan under the epidemic is also a challenge.

Hao Dahai: Judging from the situation I know, the reservation contribution of frequent passengers and members than declines after the epidemic, or the proportion of maintaining normal as before the epidemic. This is due to the more open passenger or membership plans for some aircraft hotels due to the epidemic, making more users become members and consumption.

The challenges of the frequent guest plan of the airline hotel before and after the epidemic are not much different: first of all, it is new, how to allow new users to join the frequent passenger plan; secondly, retain, how to leave new members; finally how to stimulate new members to create more value Essence

Li Chao: From the perspective of users, what new changes have been produced by the demand for regular passenger plans before and after the epidemic?

Lou Kan: What are the constant? Taking hotels as an example, users do not change the core equity needs that can reflect differentiation, such as breakfast gifts, discounts, or upgrade of room types.

What have changed? I still take hotels as an example. Even if they are not affected by the epidemic, due to changes in the structure of the customer base, the hotel will pay attention to combining membership rights with local lifestyles; and affected by the epidemic, the interaction between hotels and users has changed, and users may no longer give priority to priority. Pay attention to the product itself, but pay attention to content related to its own health. Therefore, the hotel must make changes to frequent passengers or members in the way of interaction, which also reflects the hotel's humanistic care for users.

Zeng Zhihui: I will talk about this change from the perspective of the end of the epidemic in the future: due to the compensation psychology, the user's expectations for the frequent passenger plan will be stronger than before the epidemic. After a long time of travel demand, If it is restored to normal, users will hope that service upgrades will be achieved through the frequent passenger plan of the airline hotel. Taking foreign abroad as an example, in the context of travel recovery, the airline company refused to provide votes -free and users' mileage points that could not be exchanged normally, and users had dissatisfaction, which led to a decline in loyalty.

Hao Dahai: Whether it is before and after the epidemic, passengers have not changed through the vision of a good life through the frequent passenger plan, so passengers still hope that the airline hotel can maintain the original user rights. However, after the epidemic, due to the significant increase in the cost of airline hotels, it is impossible to provide users with corresponding rights and interests. In this regard, our expectations as users' planning for regular passenger will also decrease accordingly.

Li Chao: During the epidemic during the epidemic, there was a lot of losses. Is it reasonable to redeem the exemption or house exemption of regular passengers after the epidemic is over and the user needs is warmed?

Zeng Zhihui: The retaliatory consumption in the foreign tourism travel industry has occurred, but the increase in consumer demand has also allowed the airline company to increase the fare accordingly to obtain higher profits, so naturally it will not provide users with free votes. In this regard, I think that the airline company needs to examine whether itself needs to be short -term (increase the fare in the short term, alleviate the operating difficulties) or long -term interests (providing more votes and interests to increase membership, increase membership viscosity). Li Chao: In September last year, China Eastern Airlines took the lead in realizing the transformation of the airline member plan from the "mileage system" to the "income system". Can this alleviate the concerns of passengers' concerns about membership level relegation and worry about the expiry of points?

Zeng Zhihui: To some extent, it does relieve the problem of expiration of points. But whether this mechanism is really beneficial to be questioned. The biggest problem with the income system is that on the one hand, the airline company abandoned the most interesting mechanism in the frequent passenger plan and rewarded the mileage and reward to monetization. Essence

On the other hand, the original aircraft will only provide a certain number of ticket -free seats. After adjusting it to the income system, the airline company promotes the use of the use of points to exchanges the entire cabin with points. It looks good, but the points required for the redeeming ticket are linked to the fare, and the airline will also increase the points requirements to allow users to spend more points to redeem air tickets. This actually leads to less convertible cabin, and the user's mileage points have also depreciated compared to the previous mileage system. It is not good for users in the long run.

Li Chao: From the perspective of the hotel, will the hotel be adjusted to the membership mechanism with reference to the "income system"?

Lou Kan: The hotel does not fully refer to the frequent passenger plan of the airline to adjust the member mechanism. Taking Huaju as an example, we will open a passage of consumption upgrade on the basis of the original night upgrade for users to choose, that is, more consumption to improve user membership levels. The logic behind this is that we hope to provide more channels for users to upgrade their consumption, not from the perspective of their own income as some aircraft companies.

Li Chao: As a user, how do you think of the problem of the "income system" of the airline company?

Hao Dahai: For me, the income system has indeed reduced the playability of the airline's points, and has improved the threshold of members accordingly. For example, if Eastern Airlines users want to reach Platinum membership level now, they need to spend 150,000 yuan within one year. After calculation, it is equivalent to the user to complete a round -trip flight of at least once a week. is very difficult.

In addition, when we substitute the concept of ROI (input output ratio), how much consumer management should get corresponding points for users, but the Eastern Airlines revenue system allows users to spend more money, but the points have not increased accordingly. More points are needed, in fact, the investment increases, but the output has become less. The deeper problem behind is whether the equity provided by the airline hotel to members has reduced the rights and interests of members. I think it will expire compared to the points. This is the core issue that users are most concerned about.

Li Chao: In recent years, some brands have continuously launched cross -border membership rights, including airline hotels also incorporated other cross -border rights in their own frequent passenger plans. What do you think of the airline hotel as a cross -border joint or equity?

Lou Kan: Cross -border joint names are valuable to enterprises and users: For enterprises, cross -border is a movement of their respective brands to exchanging their own private domain flow and activation of their respective brands. For users, users, users There are different consumer needs for different industries. Cross -border can provide users with different products, and can also consolidate the status of various enterprises in the hearts of users, that is, increasing user stickiness.

However, some companies will have the location of cross -border cooperation on the main business, which is a bit upside down. In addition, some companies do not analyze whether users of different enterprises have intersection and consumer scenarios to achieve complementarity when cross -border cooperation can achieve complementarity.

Zeng Zhihui: Cross -border is mainly used as a supplementary acquisition or guidance of traffic. This requires that the airlines or hotels will consider scientific factors when designing cross-border equity. For example, some companies will pile a lot of rights and interests when designing cross-border rights, but the key rights that users need most may be only 1-2 items. Rich equity actually caused waste of resources. Moreover, users did not seize the core rights and caused the decline in cross -border effects.

Segmentation to the tourism industry, cross -border is actually not very effective. For example, there are basically a certain number of members in the header aircraft hotel. It is very difficult to make articles in incremental increases through cross -border. Therefore, tourism companies should also use membership and interest design to lock the existing frequent passenger users, and to dig deeper into the consumer needs of existing users.

Hao Dahai: When designing cross -border rights, companies still depend on what users need, that is, core rights.

As a consumer, it will be dizzying when facing too many cross -border joint names or rights. This also requires enterprises to properly guide users when providing cross -border rights and let users think about what rights they need.

Li Chao: Recently, NFT (intangible tokens) is very hot. What imagination and opportunities will be brought by NFT for airline hotels when formulating regular passenger plans?

Zeng Zhihui: In the long run, NFT is most likely to change the current form of traditional frequent passenger plans. At present, the points issued by the airline hotel to frequent passengers are actually liability points, because subsequent users can consume consumption through points instead of cash in the enterprise. This cannot bring substantial benefits to the enterprise. This is one of the reasons for the airline company to depreciate points. However, after NFT is NFT, it is equivalent to becoming a digital currency, which can not only be used for consumption, but also has certain liquidity. With the increase in the frequency of users, the distribution of points, and the distribution of points, the value of points will be increased for airlines. At this time, the NFT points are more like an asset -type points.

On this basis, foreign travel companies even issued NFT regular passenger membership cards as a virtual member card for users to enjoy rights or transactions. When users trading the NFT member card, tourism companies as issues can also obtain a certain handling fee as profit, provided that more people recognize this member card, and their value will be increased accordingly.

Lou Kan: In fact, most companies in the country with points in China have not done a good job of storage and exchanges of points. If major tourism companies can connect their own integration systems to NFT in the future, it means that the points of major enterprises can achieve general deposit and exchange. Willing to develop more on membership points.

Secondly, there are a large number of scarcity resources in the liquor travel industry, such as the cabin of specific flights or a specific room of a high -star hotel. I think it can be used in the form of NFT to carry these resources and realize such scarcity resources and privileges through NFT. Reasonable premium of goods.

In addition, in the NFT environment, the wine travel industry can develop unified member wallets on the basis of this, and display the membership identity of all wine travel companies in a unified form. Perhaps NFT will cause a cross -generation transformation of a member system.

Hao Dahai: At present, the application of NFT in the tourism industry is still in the imagination. It is necessary to think about how the NFT combines the tourist scene in the tourism scene.

Li Chao: What are the prospects of the development of the frequent passenger plan?

Lou Kan: The first development trend is digitalization, and it is required to interact with regular passengers in digital platforms; the second is to further strengthen the corresponding matching and combination of the goods provided by the frequent passengers and the enterprise; the third; third This is related to the above -mentioned mention of the NFT, and the future membership plans may be decentralized.

Zeng Zhihui: First, companies still need to focus on the core user experience when formulating regular passenger plans. Regardless of points, rights, etc. are icing on the cake based on good user experience; second, the company is facing their own frequent passengers or members. At the time, the traffic thinking should be formed. It is not to blindly ask the membership to generate more consumption, but to think about how to operate the traffic and keep the traffic for a long time. In the third point, for the NFT mentioned above, the wine travel company should be tightly tight Grasping the trend can make a certain attempt on regular passenger or membership plan.

Hao Dahai: From the perspective of users, many membership systems are now complex, and they are not friendly to new members; secondly, the trend of points depreciation in wine travel companies is generally existed and spreading; in the end There are still a few users who are planned for regular passengers or membership. Therefore, enterprises still need to simplify the rules of the member system, and properly control the speed of points to depreciate, so that more non -member users become member users, so that the frequent passenger plan can change from a cost center to a profit center.

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