For Marc Ellis, Founder and CEO of Thanks Again – touted as the world’s only airport-centric coalition loyalty program – and Edmund Puckhaber, President and COO, the impending launch of a new loyalty and rewards management platform using a customized version of Comarch Loyalty Management software marks a “huge leap forward” for the company.
Scheduled to launch next month, the new platform will allow the integrations with the payment card networks to provide rewards on credit and debit card purchase activity, regardless of merchant card processor or POS hardware/software. Thanks Again will be one of the first coalition loyalty programs in the world to achieve this type of direct integration with the major payment card brands.
“The platform offers more flexibility regarding types of offers and rewards we put in front of the member,” Puckhaber told Loyalty 360. “It’s a much more integrated system than our former platform and we’ll be able to target members with special reward offers.”
Ellis told Loyalty 360 that the new platform is a “huge leap forward in terms of our ability to work with consumers and reward partners.”
For past six or seven years, Thanks Again has been using a shared platform, Puckhaber said.
“The Comarch Loyalty Management system software puts us on a dedicated server, which will allow us to scale more rapidly and efficiently from a consumer enrollment perspective,” Puckhaber said. “It’s an opportunity to integrate with major credit card associations and is a huge opportunity for us to interact directly with VISA, MasterCard, and American Express. It’s significant for them also because they’re trying to expand their non-traditional revenue base. This is different from a shared platform. This is our platform we can tweak and customize.”
Ellis said the new platform allows for access to more authorization data.”
“When the consumer completes a transaction, we can communicate messaging immediately with that member at point-of-sale and offer immediate reward redemption opportunities,” Ellis said. “What members should see are more opportunities to earn, more messaging that’s completely relevant based on a customer’s past transactions.”
When Thanks Again launched its loyalty solution in the airport space in January 2010 – its first airport was Anchorage, Alaska – 1.5 billion customers implemented it, Ellis told Loyalty 360. The airport/merchant retail loyalty solution came to Ellis in the spring of 2009 and less than a year later it was off and running.
Today, Thanks Again provides a seamless loyalty and engagement solution to 44 U.S. Airports -- including 8 of the 20 busiest – and has a presence in 170 airports.
Now, Thanks Again is poised to expand its business outside the U.S. border.
“This platform also gives us a great opportunity to integrate with mobile,” Ellis said. “This is a complete change in terms of how we’re going to expand and grow our business. We’re crossing the borders into Canada, Latin America, and Europe. We’re looking to make Thanks Again a global brand in loyalty and we think this new platform will allow us to do that.”