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AMERICAN AIRLINES VACATIONS
Challenge
American Airlines Vacations (AAV) is a division of American Airlines, a subsidiary of AMR Corporation and one of the largest airlines in the world. AAV offers vacation package deals for destinations serviced by American Airlines and its partners. AMR Corporation generated $23 billion in revenue in 2008.
AAV wanted to present consumers with a quality vacation shopping experience that was integrated with both American Airlines flights and AAdvantage, the airline’s frequent flier program. AAV decided to pull flights from American Airlines and other oneworld partners, and pull car rental, hotel, and other activities from a technology partner. Additionally, AAV wanted to control which portion of the vacation packages could be purchased with AAdvantage miles and which ones could only be purchased for cash.
Solution
AAV choose ezOTA and ezLoyalty to power their site. Through ezOTA, consumers can book any combination of car, hotel and local activities at major destinations worldwide. This travel inventory is combined with oneworld flights in a single interface on aavacations.com, complete with American Airlines branding and full merchandising tie-in with AAdvantage promotions.
AAV gives travelers the option of paying for the entire vacation package with cash, or use AAdvantage miles to pay for the non-flight portion of their trip. When consumers choose to redeem AAdvantage miles for travel, ezLoyalty converts the miles to a cash equivalent and ezOTA uses the cash equivalent to book travel. Our system allows AAV to set the cash-to-mileage conversion ratio and to control which portions of the vacation package can be purchased for miles or cash only. Additionally, ezRez gives consumers the flexibility to pay with a combination of cash and miles if they don’t have enough miles to cover the entire trip cost.
Result
AAVacations is currently live and operating as a standalone travel agency. Aavacations.com includes many best practices from successful travel sites, including destination information, special offers, travel information, and a world class UI. The site also incorporates web 2.0 merchandising strategies, such as using banner ads to promote real-time deals and creating an RSS feed to send offers directly to customers. Additionally, the site is fully supported by offline customer service so travelers can always get the support they need.
STARWOOD PREFERRED GUEST
Challenge
Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) is the award-winning loyalty program for Starwood Hotels & Resorts, a group that includes Aloft, Element, Four Points, The Luxury Collection, Le Meridien, Sheraton, St. Regis, W Hotels, and Westin. Starwood operates properties around the world and generated $5.9 billion in revenue in 2008.
SPG wanted to create a unique program where hotel guests could redeem Starpoints for air travel. By adding this redemption opportunity, SPG would increase the value of each Starpoint and – by association – a stay at any of Starwood’s properties. Given its international presence, SPG needed a solution that could be deployed to multiple markets in multiple languages. The key was to find a solution that was robust enough to deploy worldwide and flexible enough to use hotel loyalty points to book flights.
Solution
SPG choose ezOTA and ezLoyalty to power SPG Flights, the first and only hotel loyalty program that allows members to redeem loyalty points for flights. SPG created a dedicated site at spgflights.com, with full brand and messaging match to the existing spg.com site. SPG Flights offers unparalleled flexibility for SPG members looking to redeem Starpoints for air travel. Members can book flights on most major airlines, in any class, to anywhere they fly, and with no blackout dates – including holidays and peak travel periods.
This entire transaction is powered by ezRez. SPG members use ezOTA to search for flights on the Worldspan Global Distribution System. At the same time, ezLoyalty pulls members Starpoints’ balances and converts them to a cash equivalent based on the ratio determined by SPG. ezLoyalty then feeds this cash equivalent to ezOTA in order to book the air travel. The entire process is seamless and provides a superior shopping experience for SPG members.
Result
SPG Flights is currently live in seven languages: English, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish. The online system powered by ezRez is fully supported by offline customer service where SPG members around the world can find local assistance in the same languages available online.
Since this is the first and only program of its kind, SPG Flights has received lots of press coverage from both mainstream media and travel industry organizations. In April 2009, SPG Flights won a Freddie Award in the Frequent Guest Program – Best Award category.
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