November 12, 2015 TnH Global 0

Expedia India Launches Loyalty Program: Expedia+

Expedia India has launched its loyalty program, named “Expedia+”. Members of Expedia+ can join the program for free and will earn points on all of their hotel or holiday activities bookings. The loyalty program provides additional benefits such as exclusive member-only deals and bonus offers. Expedia+ has three tiers: +blue, +silver and +gold. With the launch of Expedia+, the brand gets to recognize and award its regular loyal users and also entice prospective customers with an appealing value added proposition.

Expedia conducted a consumer survey on loyalty program participation and discovered that 44% of Indians would be open to enrolling into new travel loyalty programs and desired benefits include – complimentary upgrade of hotel/room category (82%), free drinks & meals (77%), hotel nights abroad (34%), flexibility to redeem or gift points (27% ) and flexible check-in and check-out options (19%). Indian travelers not only use their personal account for office travel bookings (61%), but also volunteer to book travel for their extended family (73%) in order to earn reward points. While 29% of the travellers surveyed are still collecting reward points, 31% have already redeemed their points once.

Expedia+ addresses the needs of the Indian consumer when considering a travel loyalty program. Members will be able to redeem their points whenever they want, with no blackout dates for high season holidays and space capacity. Free membership automatically gives the consumers a +blue status, followed by +silver status after staying 7 qualifying hotel room nights and +gold status after staying 15 qualifying hotel room nights. The +gold and +silver members enjoy additional benefits such as extra bonus points on every booking, plus free amenities or room upgrades if they book one of Expedia’s 1,800 VIP hotels in over 200 destinations globally. Travelers also get triple the amount of points for booking via Expedia‘s mobile application. Expedia+ points can be used for making booking for oneself as well as fellow travelers.

Mr. Manmeet Ahluwalia, Marketing Head, Expedia India said, “With the growing acceptance of e-commerce and evolution of the Indian travelers, the consumer has now started looking for value based programs that not only offer them great rewards but also exclusive benefits. Our survey on loyalty program discovered that 47% Indians are a part of 2-3 travel loyalty programs while 38% participate in at least 1 program. This clearly reflects that there is an appetite for loyalty programs as the Indian consumer is growing smarter and wants to accumulate and avail benefits on every purchase. The Expedia+ program offers exclusive deals for its consumers not only in India, but across the globe.”

“The Expedia+ program will not only help us reach out to a larger number of customers but also expands our base of loyal customers in the country”, he added.