How Rewards Programs Like Air Miles Could Soothe Angry Customers

This isn’t the first time an expiry rule has produced a consumer backlash. In 2013, Aeroplan backtracked on an arrangement to implement an expiry date for all points following customer complaints. As clients race to recover their miles before the approaching expiry date, numerous keep on being disappointed with the system, frustrated about everything from the expiry date itself to restricted rewards options for aging miles.

“I’m just going to throw the card away,” Toronto Air Miles collector John MacKenzie told CBC News, after failing to find a satisfactory way to use up his points.

The travel rewards system is additionally confronting two lawsuits, one a class action lawsuit over a different expiry issue.

One conceivable answer to maintain a strategy moving forward would be for rewards programs to implement far reaching rules, particularly when it comes to expiry dates.

“Put it in bold print, really tell people what they’re possibly facing,” advised Lindsay Meredith, a marketing professor at Simon Fraser University. “And then if they want to play under those rules, fine, they’ve been forewarned.”

Canada’s Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) has been calling for industry-wide guidelines for rewards programs since 2013.

PIAC would also like to see an independent complaints commission that consumers can turn to when they have formal complaints about their rewards program.

Building up industry standards would benefit consumers, as well as help loyalty programs keep current customers and lure new individuals.

Air Miles says it gave clients a lot of notification that miles older than five years would begin lapsing in 2017.

Since then, it has posted information online for customers. “We have made expiry information very easy to find on our website,” spokeswoman Natasha Lasiuk said in an email last month. Up to this point, collectors needed to explore the site’s FAQ segment to learn more subtle elements.

In late July, Air Miles sent an email to clients cautioning about the coming expiry date. It likewise now posts the news in a pop-up message on its site.

In late 2006, Aeroplan reported that beginning July 1, 2007, individuals would lose every one of their miles in the event that they didn’t include or reclaim points in any event once more than 12 months. Expired accounts could be reinstated for a fee.

The lawsuits allege the rule change was a breach of contract and that customers didn’t receive adequate notice.

Mississauga Aeroplan customer Steve Woloshyn says he joined the class action after 365,000 points were wiped from his account due to 12 months of inactivity.

“I was shocked,” said Woloshyn, who had been saving his miles to take his wife to Australia and says he didn’t know they were at risk of expiring. “It was like somebody deflated my balloon.”

Indeed, even in this way, recently acquainted ones proceed to outrage many customers, particularly when they learn about the news late in the game. In any case, if there was a reasonable, standard policy for how individuals must be informed, maybe companies could avoid some of that outrage and messy legal battles.