The Trade Rite Group is the only program that covers trades that we’re aware of, and the savings that can be made for everyday electrical, plumbing, or even if you’re building a new home, become very large very quickly.

Each trade or service you book through the Trade Rite Group will earn you 5% of the total cost in Reward Dollars. Those dollars can then be spent on other trades or services within the Trade Rite Group. Given that the group covers 32 trades and services it won’t take much creativity to find something to spend it on. Put it towards a new motorbike, spoil yourself with topshelf wine, or relax with a massage… the variety is there. For a full list of trades and services offered view the program listing.

The program definitely has potential and the service is excellent. Enquiries and bookings can be made from the Trade Rite Group home

Sweeet!
Graham

Petbarn has almost 50 stores Australia wide with a few “coming soons” on the way. Their Friends for Life program is simple yet effective. It’s free to join next time you’re in store and you’ll receive a card and a few key fobs. The core of the program is earn 1 point for every dollar spent in store, once you reach 500 points you’ll receive a $10 voucher to spend in store, equivalent to a 2% discount. Keep in mind, this discount is equivalent to that of MYER’s MYER one program which receives a lot of praise for being better value than a lot of credit card schemes. The second core perk is a “buy 10 get 1 free” on super premium pet food. Get your dog or cat the best there is and receive a free bag every now and then Thirdly, the program often has exclusive member sales where you can expect to see 20%+ off. All round a pretty good offering from a pet store! Find Your Local.

Fitness First Gyms are great; we pay a motza for membership, take part in their programs, and increase our sense of well-being. Fitness First are one mob who are looking at giving us more than self-satisfaction, satisfaction in the wallet. Simply by being a Fitness First member you gain access to a number of exclusive offers including monthly special deals. At the moment you can get in to some serious tunes with a free copy of Ministry of Sound’s The Annual 2010 when purchasing Ministry of Sound Sessions 7, or make a newspaper subscription affordable by saving $315 on The Age or The Sydney Morning Herald. Get your wallet in to shape.

Cheers,
Graham

Velocity Rewards members can now earn up to 1.5 points per mile on Virgin America and Virgin Atlantic. The link strengthens earning potential, but still contains far less flight earning opportunities than the Qantas Frequent Flyer program, with over 26 airline partners.

As a part of the celebration members can win a luxury 7 night holiday to Richard Branson’s private island, Necker Island, by flying on any two Virgin airlines before January 2011. The prize includes business class flights to LA and transfers to and from Necker Island for two. Entry details.

Although the Velocity Rewards program is more lightweight than Qantas Frequent Flyer it’s starting to pack a punch with over 100 online shopping partners in the ShopAndEarn store, no membership fee, and redemption options including gift cards for Myer and David Jones.

Has Virgin amped it up enough for you to make the switch?

Graham

Trek to the South Pole with BankWest… Sounds cool, and it will be, but it’ll also set you back 19,359,900 rewards points, or a measly $9,679,950 spend with the platinum More Rewards Card.

Get a Rebate on your Holden with Westpac. Very few programs embrace car manufacturers, and perhaps there’s a reason for it, but when this increases your redemption value to 2% opposed to 0.58% (for a Myer Gift Card) it could be a neat addition…

Goggles for your… Dog? Need I say anymore?

Keen to hear what interesting and cool things you’ve come across.

Cheers,
Graham

The spending limits on the card are a little funny at first inspection but clearly define the target audience. Earn 1 Velocity Point for every $1 you spend on the card up to $1,500 per month, and then 1 Velocity Point for every $2 after that. Earning 1 point per dollar is in line with other credit card rewards programs when redeeming for cashback and gift cards.

Each time you purchase a Blue Saver, Flexible, Corporate Plus, or Premium Economy ticket you will be eligible for a second ticket in the same booking class free providing there is availability. Free doesn’t include any extra costs for baggage and credit card surcharges. Limited to four sectors worth of travel per year. A nice addition to the card and ties in nicely with a family holiday.

If you register now and use your card before October 15 you will receive a free Go! flight. This fare is limited to routes that are 1,000km or shorter and are on a specific list in the terms and conditions. Major routes such as Melbourne-Sydney are included. The value of this fare varies, but on some flights this will offset the first year’s annual fee.

A balance transfer rate of 6.9% for 6 months is hardly comparable to other available cards on the market, with some even offering 0% interest for 6 months.

$99 per year? The fee isn’t justified when only evaluating the Velocity points-earning potential, but with the buy 1 ticket get 1 free I can easily see a way for frequent flyers to be offsetting that annual fee each year.

Visit the Virgin Flyer Website

Cheers,

Graham.

‪We’ve just come across mozo.com.au, a pretty cool competitor for RateCity and other rate aggregators out there. They’ve been in the media this week as they have just launched a brand new tool to compare rewards credit cards.

The Rewards Revealer allows you to enter details about your credit spending habits and the type of reward you like. Then, based on the points you will earn and annual fees, the Rewards Revealer will show you the “highest rated” credits cards based on the dollar value of the redeemable rewards.

This is a great tool to start your research in to a rewards credit card that may be right for you. Keeping in mind that the tool is calculating rewards on the base earn-rate of the cards only.

In Mozo’s press release they knock rewards credit cards saying they are “Unrewarding” and that they “fail consumers”. They’re right on face value. The rewards don’t look too crash hot when reviewing individual programs with the Rewards Revealer. But utilising loyalty programs is much broader than just a $ value for point calculation.

The Rewards Revealer does not take in to account the complimentary services that come with premium credit cards, such as insurance and concierge services that don’t have a monetary value.

Though they are pretty open about not including bonus shopping days in their calculations, it’s these and other personalised rewards that consumers love – like access to pre-sale tickets and other ‘clubs within the club’. These are a critical part of the rewards credit card decision making process.

Use your credit card to earn points at the same time as using individual retailer rewards cards and you get even more advantage. Research we have conducted here at Perkler HQ reveals that an average family of four can save over $4,100 through the use of rewards programs in their everyday spending.

We agree completely with the Mozo conclusion that on paper credit card point scales offer little direct cash benefit, but we still maintain the broader loyalty redemption market is strong. As we always say – if you are going to shop there anyway, why not get some kind of benefit?

Classic example is Westpac Altitude. Here at Perkler Jus uses his. The direct points value is pretty low – but using points to fly him and Mrs Jus to Melbourne for a weekend away from the kids is worth more than a dollar calculation - though he does love his kids

Check out the Rewards Revealer

and read what SMH have to say

Good Points: Consumers
It was extremely easy to take part in the promotion. Simply swipe your card when making any purchase at a participating Woolworths, BIG W, BWS, or Dick Smith.

Bad Points: Consumers
The promotion was entirely draws to win prizes meaning there was no instant feeling of being rewarded.

Good Points: Everyday Rewards
The promotion would have revealed which consumers are most easily swayed by promotional products and those who are not.

Bad Points: Everyday Rewards
Perhaps a loss of positive sentiment for the program, but it’s hard to find much more than that.

How would I have done the promotion differently?
Well, if I was Everyday Rewards then perhaps I wouldn’t. They now have the power, or at least more than they had before, to target members based on how likely they are to respond to a particular promotion. That’s a pretty powerful piece of information to have as there isn’t a direct link between an active user and redemption of special offers.

How did you rate the First Birthday Bonanza?
(dislike) 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 (like)

Got a lengthy response? Leave a comment below.

Cheers,
Graham

Australian Cinema Loyalty Programs

Taking a quick look at the table we can see that all the programs are very similar. This means we aren’t being forced to make another decision about where to take our money. This brings about a few observations and questions. If the programs aren’t competing with each other then the sole purpose can be to give something back to their regular customers, what a loyalty program should be from a consumer perspective. Given that all the programs are similar though, they aren’t gaining sales through the program, creating a low return on their investment, what a loyalty program shouldn’t be from a business perspective.

Are movie theatres wasting their time and money on their loyalty programs? Let us know below.

Cheers,
Graham.

To be frank, the tie in between retailers and loyalty on the phone is pretty lean. While there are plenty of loyalty services companies developing technology, Australian retailers still seem reluctant to link perks to purchasing in the mobile space.

Let’s hope loyalty gets its act together and starts getting out there with the Lasoo and Get Prices of the world!

And if you’ve come across a loyalty app let us know all about it, we’ll happily take a look.

For the moment, here are a couple we’ve been impressed with.

Flybuys - iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad

In all honesty we’ve been really impressed with the work the Flybuys team have been doing over recent months. The launch of Everyday Rewards has really kicked the market along and the result is a revitalisation of competing programs.

The app itself has everything you would expect from a coalition points program. The basic menu covers stores, rewards and points balances.

Set up can take a little while as you need to establish a password to keep authentication secure - but that seems a small price to pay for an updated points balance. And that’s one of the great pieces of information - not just current points but importantly when they expire - critical if you want to make sure you use them effectively.

The wishlist section is clear and allows you to set up goals so that you know what you are ‘earning’ towards, and the store locator is a neat feature with so many brands available under the one program.

All in all a nice little package.

Choice Hotels - iPhone and PDA / “standard” mobile phone platforms

Hotel Chains are perfectly placed to take advantage of the app market. With multiple brands, multiple locations and last minute booking all the ingredients are there for a great app. Choice Australia utilises its international connections to bring you a comprehensive app across multiple platforms.

You can search hotels from 10 brands - that’s an enormous range to choose from - and then make reservations. Importantly from a loyalty point of view you can access your account (it throws you to a secure but clunky webpage) so that you can see point balance and redeem straight from that balance.

With the range of hotels these guys have this is GPS heaven - and the loyalty account tie in ticks all the right boxes for us. A bit more design work on the web pages and it would be the total package!

So that’s two…

I guess the development required for an app and tying in loyalty is a reasonable investment, but surely linking earn and particularly burn  to the point of purchase is a critical part of the modern retailer’s armoury.

I can only assume Everyday Rewards, Qantas and lots of others are working on their mobile malls now…Would be interesting to know what their thoughts on this channel and how it links to loyalty are.

As far as we go, we are putting the final touches to our app - which in true Perkler style will seek to bring your whole wallet to life, more on ‘Perky Shopper’ soon.

Based on those articles I managed to create three groups of roughly the same size. The groups were created with member activity in mind and were separated in the following way: No Interaction, Infrequent Interaction, and Frequent Interaction.

Perhaps not surprising at all is that the Frequent Interaction group provide 79% of all our email opens and 57% of click throughs even though this is the smallest group we have with just under a third of members being a part of it.

Interestingly though, the Infrequent Interaction group created the highest conversion rate at just over 20% of opens generating a conversion.

Moral of the story? Segmenting your list will help identify the value and allow you to cut the fat producing higher conversion rates and thus increasing the value of your list. It also helps if you use a great service like MailChimp which continues to give us intelligence that helps us build stronger, more meaningful links to our users.

Until next time,
Graham