CMO

Optus to exit Qantas Frequent Flyers customer loyalty program

Telco attributes decision to plans to evolve its own customer loyalty offering
Qantas

Qantas

Optus has attributed its decision pulled out of its partnership with Qantas’ Frequent Flyer program to plans to evolve its own customer loyalty offering.

The telco announced today that it would not renew the agreement from 30 June after a three-and-a-half year partnership. The deal allows Optus consumer and SMB customers to earn Qantas points when paying bills.

In a statement, Optus’ newly appointed managing director of marketing and product and former head of customer for the consumer division, Vicki Brady, said the telco is looking to make a number of changes to its customer loyalty program.

“We know that our customers value different things, so we’re working on the best way to bring our rewards to life in a way that makes sense for them,” she said. “We thank our customers for their loyalty and will continue the Optus Movie Rewards Program.”

According to Qantas Loyalty CEO, Lesley Grant, the pair had enjoyed a great working relationship. She pointed to the program’s longstanding record of adding new partners, and indicated this would continue in coming months.

“While we have an extremely low turnover rate of partners, it’s to be expected that from time to time there will be partners that move in and out of the program,” Grant said.

The Qantas Frequent Flyer program currently offers 2500 ways for members to earn points outside of flying and has introduced a raft of new offerings in the past 18 months, including an ecommerce portal for customers to purchase a range of third-party products, the Qantas Cash pre-paid travel card, and the new Acquire loyalty club for SMBs and Golf Club.

At last month’s Ad:Tech conference, Qantas CMO, Stephanie Tully, said a “coalition loyalty business” is the driving force behind the high engagement of Frequent Flyers.

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