Rethinking airline loyalty: Making traveller status real

by WAF_Contributor | Sep 29, 2025 | Airlines, Digital Transformation, Features

By Catarina Silva, Travel in Motion AG

In my previous blog Rethinking airline loyalty: Why traveller status could be a strategic game-changer, I posed a provocation: what if airlines could reward travellers before they ever flew with them, simply based on travel behaviour elsewhere? A “Traveller Status”. Since publishing that post, I have received strong feedback and comments. The enthusiasm for the idea was matched only by the question that inevitably followed: “How would we actually do this?”

Let us move from concept to action. Turning this idea into reality is more than perks and marketing. It touches data access, IT infrastructure, partnerships and even the politics of loyalty programmes. Here is how airlines can make Traveller Status real and the roadblocks they will need to navigate.

How to collect travel behaviour outside your ecosystem

The Traveller Status model rests on one foundational capability: access to travellers’ flight behaviour before they ever book with your airline. That requires both data sources and traveller incentives:

Traveller-provisioned data: encourage travellers to share their past travel activity through opt-in mechanisms such as
- Email parsing: tools that extract flight details from confirmation emails (e.g., how TripIt and Google Trips work)
- Loyalty wallet apps: leverage platforms that aggregate loyalty accounts (e.g., AwardWallet, Point.me or Cardlytics)
- Receipt syncing apps: allow users to upload travel receipts or sync with apps such as Expensify
Corporate and TMC feeds: partner with TMCs and corporate travel platforms to analyse aggregated, anonymised behaviour of frequent business travellers
Travel affinity signals: explore partnerships with data marketplaces or customer data platforms (CDPs) that use web cookies, bookings and cross-site behaviour to identify travel-intent users across brands
Incentivising travellers to share data: travellers will provide their data if the value is clear. Practical motivators include
- Status jumpstart: “Get Traveller Status by syncing your travel activity, no miles needed”
- Gamification: “Unlock vouchers or perks based on verified travel behaviour”; “Gain wallet cash for each trip”; “Collect stamps in your digital travel book for discounts”
- Loyalty match and upgrade: match their status elsewhere and instantly upgrade if they share proof of travel volume.

This turns data collection into a transparent, high-value exchange.

Who gets Traveller Status?

Once data is collected, airlines can define the segmentation logic for Traveller Status (e.g. 10 or more flights in the past six months, overlap with strategic routes, premium cabin or ancillary spend), using behaviour indicators that show acquisition potential.

How to reward the traveller

Most loyalty programmes today reward how much someone flies. But in the retail era of airline commerce, how they book and interact can be just as valuable, especially for Traveller Status. This opens the door to a more modern framework, where profitable, direct or high-engagement behaviours are rewarded.

Channel-based incentives: prioritise and reward behaviours that drive better margin or data ownership for your airline:

Booking directly on airline.com or the mobile app: cash wallet credit, fee waivers, discounts or early access to sales or dynamic offers
Engagement with owned channels: rewards for using the app (push notifications, wallet cards, in-app upgrades); perks for opting in to personalisation, alerts and fare tracking
NDC-based purchases: incentivise bookings through partners connected via NDC, similar to booking directly

Profile enrichment: offer perks or Traveller Status credits for completing profile information, preferences or payment details. This strategy turns Traveller Status into a retail onboarding engine.

What are the IT and commercial implications?

This shift from reactive loyalty to proactive engagement will require investment, but it positions airlines for long-term commercial agility.

Deploying Traveller Status touches multiple systems, for which airlines must consider:

CRM readiness to ingest and segment prospects based on external travel data
Offer engine flexibility to personalise offers based on inferred value, not just loyalty tiers
API infrastructure to allow integration with third-party data sources
Consent management to comply with privacy regulations
Customer identity resolution to link fragmented digital profiles, especially if a traveller has not previously interacted with the airline (e.g. LiveRamp, Acxiom)

It also touches the broader loyalty and commercial ecosystem, for which airlines must prepare:

Alliance recognition: begin with benefits limited to your airline only, and extend as partners are ready
Credit card partner reaction:
- Use Traveller Status to highlight credit card offers tied to travel behaviour
- Involve banks in status qualification
- Enable credit card spending or travel-related purchases to contribute towards status
Retail and travel partner participation:
- Enable status based on partners’ tiers (e.g. hotel platinum or car rental gold)
- Enable third-party partners to issue benefits for Traveller Status holders
- Enable a shared “travel behaviour score” across your partner ecosystem
Track performance and measure ROI:
- Tie Traveller Status offers to unique promo codes or booking paths
- Track redemption, upsell behaviour and lifetime value
- Compare travellers who received offers against those who did not, but matched on behaviour

Can airlines start Traveller Status today?

The short answer: yes, but not at full scale. Current ecosystems are not built to support a fully open Traveller Status model. But airlines do not need to wait until 2030 for new architectures.

Low-risk, high-signal examples that could be deployed now include:

Building a Traveller Status onboarding widget inside the airline app where customers can sync email receipts, add trip data manually or connect to a wallet aggregator
Identifying fragmented travellers on high-yield routes and extending Traveller Status invitations
Partnering with TMCs or SME travel platforms to spot multi-carrier frequent travellers, then offering Traveller Status as a conversion lever

Traveller Status reflects a fundamental shift in thinking, but it is also a test of commercial courage. For those who take the lead, the reward is significant: a smarter, faster and more direct path to building meaningful traveller relationships in a fragmented world.

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