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The price of loyalty
The intriguing psychology of airline loyalty schemes, and what it tells us about how we function
I haven’t looked in your wallet (honestly), but chances are it contains at least one loyalty scheme membership card. These schemes are everywhere, originating as long ago as the late 1700s, but the ones we know began to emerge about 100 years later. Airline loyalty schemes didn’t gain traction until the 1980s — and they form a peculiar category, capable of twisting the capacity for rational thought of grown women and men like nothing else. In a recent tweet, a frequent flyer announced regretfully he would be losing his platinum status — “Feels like a breakup” — describing it as “extreme behaviour change”. Losing something is never pleasant, but isn’t this intense reaction a bit odd?
It’s loyalty, but not as we know it
Unlike the real-word loyalty to relatives and friends, commercial-world loyalty schemes are a zero-sum affair, with one simple purpose: prevent customers from buying from the competition. That is not so hard, because maintaining existing beneficial relationships takes less effort than to look for new ones. Exploiting and bias (staying put because we have a credit balance) form a good starting point, but still, the customer’s loyalty must be bought — sorry…
