E-Rewards USA-bound airline comparison survey

[Melburnian1]

I just did a 15 minute online survey under the good E-Rewards market research site.

It asked about which international airlines one had travelled on in the last two years, which airlines one was aware of but had not used in that time period - open ended, I had to list all these - then got into specifics and presented tables of trip attributes) such as quality of the economy cabin, complimentary food and beverage - asking one to allocate 100 points in total between these features.

Wanted to know in last two years how many domestic leisure and business flights one had been on, and for international split these into 'USA' and 'non USA.'

Then it asked more questions about Virgin Australia, United, American Airlines and Hawaiian, presenting many options such as 'excellent customer service, 'on time', 'good food and beverages', 'professional' and so on.

Didn't seem to focus on Qantas which I found interesting.

Suspect it was for VA but not clear: it could have been for one of the USA airlines.

Shows how competition has increased if one airline is spending $$ on market research.

 

[Strategic Aviation]

Didn't seem to focus on Qantas which I found interesting.

Any mention of QF or none at all?

Suspect it was for VA but not clear: it could have been for one of the USA airlines.

e-Rewards seems to have pretty good geographic screening and it probably would have been VA, but then again any of those US airlines could be interested in Australian opinions too.

Shows how competition has increased if one airline is spending $$ on market research.

Not just one airline. Airlines have always spent money on market research and there have been plenty of surveys direct to their customers and through third party platforms.

It may be indicative of increased competition in a mature market. QF, VA and JQ now have their own customer advisory panels/communities. Indeed QF has Red Planet, an advisory community, an advisory panel, direct surveys to customers and also runs surveys on third party platforms.

There was a very interesting QF survey recently via both RP and e-Rewards.

 

[Melburnian1]

Any mention of QF or none at all?.

At the start there were about 12 boxes where one could name - open ended - airlines, domestic or international, with which one was familiar.

But in the main body of the questionairre, no, it did not mention QF at all which I found odd, but in a couple of screens it had VA/UA/HA/AA as the four from which to choose that one thought had various attributes (such as 'great service', 'good food and drink' and so on.

Maybe the surveying airline (perhaps VA) knows so much about QF that it wanted to explore travellers' attitides to the others.

No overt mention at all of NZ, SQ, FJ, KE, PR, CX, JL, NH, OZ or others competing for a slice, however small, of the Oz - USA air travel market.

I was actually very pleased to do the survey because it tells me as a consumer that there is proper competition out there, that (in theory) at least one airline is interested in tailoring its offerings to what is most popular with consumers.

Also there was one question on what attributes of frequent flyer schemes one likes, and again I had to allocate 100 points in total - so for instance 60 points to being able to find reward seats on that airline, 20 points re on its partners and 10 points each on earning points from wining and dining, or the opportunity to shop with accumulated points.

I might think I could guess in each case what popularity of various responses would be, and relative popularity of each airline, but I would certainly be wrong on some of these. Sadly, I'll never see the results of this interesting market research.

Strategic Aviation, with these bigger budget clients like airlines, would they typically be wanting a sample size across Australia of at least 1000 qualifying respondents? There'd be an upper limit.

 

[DavidFlynn]

I expect the company behind this is Virgin Australia.

 

[Denali]

I had the same survey.

 

[deebens]

I think I had the same one, but they asked me for my QFF number at the end. I didn't give it.

 

[cashman05]

Hi all,

I just completed the survey and it had a definitive QF flavour with specific questions about QF classic rewards and using points to cover taxes/surcharges.

Not sure if the survey generated this way due to low marks for QF and especially JQ.

 

[Melburnian1]

Hi all,

I just completed the survey and it had a definitive QF flavour with specific questions about QF classic rewards and using points to cover taxes/surcharges.

Not sure if the survey generated this way due to low marks for QF and especially JQ.

Mine may have been a different survey, or if it wasn't, it asked different questions of me. That would be unusual.

 

[Melburnian1]

I think I had the same one, but they asked me for my QFF number at the end. I didn't give it.

Mine did not ask for any FF members although I indicated I was a member of multiple schemes.

Always possible they were different surveys.

 

[Melburnian1]

I expect the company behind this is Virgin Australia.

Maybe, if it was VA, then one of the aims behind it is to discover whether travellers 'across the Pacific' prefer HA or UL (given that AA is out of the ball park for VA).

Clever market researchers can tell sponsoring companies a lot from surveys like this. It may even throw up some surprises that airline execuives weren't expecting, although one caveat is that awareness of an airline like HA may well be still very or quite low among Australian-domiciled travellers.

 

[deebens]

Mine did not ask for any FF members although I indicated I was a member of multiple schemes.

Always possible they were different surveys.

True, I initially thought it was for Virgin because it seemed to narrow down on them, but then right at the end there were a couple of qantas questions and then it wanted my QFF number. I noted I was a velocity and qantas member.

 

[Strategic Aviation]

Strategic Aviation, with these bigger budget clients like airlines, would they typically be wanting a sample size across Australia of at least 1000 qualifying respondents?

No idea. (But at least with e-Rewards you don't get offered surveys that have already filled their quota, which was a significant problem with RP.)

 

[Melburnian1]

No idea. (But at least with e-Rewards you don't get offered surveys that have already filled their quota, which was a significant problem with RP.)

Strategic, what is 'RP?'

 

[Strategic Aviation]

Red Planet.