New ITA Alitalia loyalty program: here's what the perfect frequent flyer should look like
The Millemiglia program is destined to end up in other hands and in any case it will not be able to remain within the [...]
ITA Airways
Alitalia
The Millemiglia program is destined to end up in other hands and in any case will not be able to stay within the perimeter of ITA and the new Alitalia. Of course, some Italian-style barbs would be possible, but getting away with it would by no means be easy, so all the better to start with a blank sheet of paper and design from scratch the loyalty program to come.
In this article:
The writer is a Winged Arrow member, but also Gold with Tap Portugal and Singapore, Silver with British Airways and Virgin Atlantic. Besides that I am a member of other loyalty programs. This article is meant to be a kind of wish list for the new ITA-branded loyalty program.
The alliance
The most important choice will be which alliance to enter into an agreement with for code sharing and all other related activities. To date. Alitalia has always been part of SkyTeam and for many this marriage has also been concaused by the many tricolor failures. There has been persistent talk for years of a partnership with Lufthansa, so Star Alliance, this solution according to my taste would be the best.
Due to the presence of the German group, United in the U.S. and Singapore, and Turkish and ANA in the EMEA and Far East markets, this alliance would be perfect as it would allow for the accumulation of points in Italy to be converted to lots of partners and to be able to detach award tickets for the world's best first class or for a To go around the world with Singapore.
Hard to think of a landing in One World, But being able to use AZ status to access British lounges. and flying with Qatar would be no small feat. In any case, both Star Alliance and One World would also be attractive because of the presence of a few partner membership rewards in Italy with these companies.
The statuses
The models by which companies enable elite status and the associated benefits have changed so much in recent years. Net of the fact that, almost certainly, Amex and new Alitalia will renew agreement and so the new cobranded cards will bring new benefits, I hope the scoring model for obtaining status Is similar to that of British Airways e Air France rather than to Lufthansa and American airlines.
BA and AF allow passengers to earn status points depending on the length and class of the flight, so it is super simple to calculate how many points (Tier for BA or XP for AF) are earned on each flight and how many/what flights are needed to gain status. In contrast, American and Lufthansa airlines have a calculation that is tied to various factors, such as how much money you spent on tickets, class, and number of flights. More complicated solution even than the current Alitalia qualifying miles model.
Benefit
The benefits of the current Millemiglia program are/were nonexistent, except for priority boarding, when the bus was not used, and extra baggage. I would love to see an American approach to benefits, it would definitely be a way to try to steal customers from the competition. This would mean free upgrades based on seat availability, flexibility in reservations, more customer service, generally a clean break with the past.
Award tickets
British Airways recently announced the doubling of award seat availability aboard all its flights, Alitalia frequent flyers, on the other hand, know full well how the shortage of seats forced dawn wake-ups and every other ploy to book an award ticket to a destination like Miami or Los Angeles.
In addition to this I would like a competitive award flight table. Because it must be admitted, thanks to the corporate crisis, the award ticket table on Alitalia flights has always been one of the most affordable even though the list of destinations has always been small. A table not based on distance, but with variable pricing based on the time of year and aircraft fill rate, as is the case with almost all Western airlines. This would also open up to operations like the one that is done every month by KLM/AF. With special offers on dedicated routes.
In summary, my ideal loyalty program would be:
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Star Alliance
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Qualification for statuses with the same BA or AF model.
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Benefits similar to those of American companies
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Award tickets with variable table and as many award places as with BA
Now we just have to wait...
