Article: Airlines Are Not Very Good At Personalising Offers

[AFF Editor]

Canonical URL

https://www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au/airlines-personalised-offers/

Airlines Are Not Very Good At Personalising Offers is an article written by the AFF editorial team:

Airlines Are Not Very Good At Personalising Offers

Airlines collect lots of data about their customers and loyalty program members, yet they offer irrelevant deals and poor personalisation.

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

You can leave a comment or discuss this topic below.

 

[elanshin]

The corporate button pushers are typically not technologically savvy enough to work out these things. And no new tech entrepreneur is silly enough to run an airline.

Maybe one day Amazon Air will be a thing and we'll see this.

 

[Scarlett]

In most cases they’re not collecting the data to help you, the traveller. They’re collecting the data to on sell you: you’re the product.

 

[moa999]

Agreed they could be a lot smarter in what they do..

Indeed the Australian founded business Rokt, now head by ex-Jetstar CEO Bruce Buchanan makes its money doing exactly this, with it's post purchase ad network.

Qantas at least seems to target it's offers based on where you live, or where they guess you live.
Unlike Scoot, who continually bombards me with sales highlighting the cheap flights from Perth, as though they have some relevance.

 

[flyingfan]

@trippin_the_rift has posted / written about similar topics and would know

 

[trippin_the_rift]

In most cases they’re not collecting the data to help you, the traveller. They’re collecting the data to on sell you: you’re the product.

Except that most airlines, including both VA and QF, are not very good at it. Even to Matt's point - the worlds biggest airlines are kinda pathetic at it as well. United, the worlds biggest airline, tries to sell me lounge access for an extra $75++ on every flight, even though I'm Star Gold. Don't get me started on US airlines trying to flog crdeit cards to non-US residents.

Instead, for most airlines, there is a focus on contextual factors, such as using it for ad retargeting and partner insights (to justify the cost of points), etc.

Agreed they could be a lot smarter in what they do..

Indeed the Australian founded business Rokt, now head by ex-Jetstar CEO Bruce Buchanan makes its money doing exactly this, with it's post purchase ad network.

Qantas at least seems to target it's offers based on where you live, or where they guess you live.
Unlike Scoot, who continually bombards me with sales highlighting the cheap flights from Perth, as though they have some relevance.

Only 1 airline has sent me relevant emails: Emirates. It's "business & first class deals from xx_", where xx_ is the city where most of my flying is out of.

QF - Continues to send me Australian-only offers, despite having not lived in Australia, or purchased an ex-AU fare, or holding a QF points-earning credit card for almost 15 years.

I mean, it's embarrassing to have acquired and invested $10 M in analytics firms/projects, only to tell the world you're great with data, yet it seems like the easiest of easy wins are ignored. There are multiple reasons why this is happening, but ultimately it comes down to how the industry operates.

I could share other airline examples (hotels are guilty of this, too), but instead of focusing on the negatives, I view this as a giant opportunity.

Imagine how much more $$$ airlines would make with minor tweaks that would show actual, relevant offers??

Post-booking ad network is great.

@trippin_the_rift has posted / written about similar topics and would know

<3

 

[dajop]

I find it reassuring our data is not yet with being fully leveraged.

TBH, probably the supermarkets seem to do it the best - with good reason - mostly high frequency purchases with regular repeat purchases.

For airlines, most passengers are unlikely to be frequent repeat purchasers of the same flights, although for many I am sure a pattern emerges (eg OOL or DPS regulars). At in individual consumer level (i.e. non-business travel) the VFR market probably lends itself more to targeting by airlines for the airline itself than the leisure market, although the latter lends itself to destination based offers (which happen anyway).

 

[Beer_budget]

Hotel chains aren't much better. I get an endless string of "personalised offers" for inclusive resorts in Thailand from Marriott Bonvoy. I don't care for resorts and I've never so much as searched for Thai hotels. Apparently repeat stays in the BNE Westin (and nowhere else) haven't given them the hint.