Van Dorn, co-founder & CEO of PointsHound, addressed this issue for Loyalty 360.
“There’s been a proliferation of new loyalty programs and virtual currencies over the past few years,” Van Dorn said. “Every day it seems like a new ecommerce brand is launching its own proprietary currency. Loyalty has just gotten overwhelming -- if you believe the stat that the average U.S. consumer is a member of 18 programs and active in 8. There isn’t much mindshare left for the average consumer to learn a new currency’s rules and tricks; where to earn it, how to burn it. We’ve heard from a lot of our users who are grateful that we only work with programs that already understand value, and don’t try to impose some new PointsHound-branded currency system on them.”
In the areas of hotels, retail, and airlines, Van Dorn said loyalty programs are more important than ever given how much value members can derive from them if they’re smart about how they participate in their programs.
“The fact that there is now a cottage industry of hundreds of bloggers writing about how to maximize these various programs is a testament to how big loyalty has become,” Van Dorn said. “Social networks have also helped enhance the visibility of the programs, rapidly spreading news about new promotions, new rewards, and signup/referral bonuses. We’ve definitely seen the power of these social channels first-hand in our own business.”
Every consumer is different, Van Dorn said, and he doesn’t believe you can make relative value judgments on the different verticals.
“If you’re a traveling consultant and stay at the same Hilton Monday-Thursday every week, your upgrades, free Wi-Fi, and other elite benefits are going to be extremely valuable,” Van Dorn said. “If you don’t travel as much, but love gaming and gadgets, you’ll probably get more out of Best Buy’s RewardZone. I’ve got a lot of transcontinental and international travel coming up so I am personally focused on racking up airline points and miles to make those trips possible and more comfortable.”