Air Canada Aeroplan Insights with Andrew Noonan

Andrew, welcome to the show today. I’m so excited to have you here with us. I know there’s some great things we’re going to learn to talk with our customer base, or sorry, pardon me. Let me redo that. I’m in the wrong show. Andrew, thank you so much for joining us here today. I’m really excited for this conversation. And I know our listeners are going to get so much out of this. Just thank you so much for joining us today.

Andrew Noonan (00:51.645)

Thanks for having me.

Will (00:54.05)

You know, Andrew, we’re going to give this pretty interesting topic here, but I think one of the really interesting topics you have as well is just kind of your journey to how you’ve gotten here in your career. Maybe you could just start by giving our listeners a little bit of background on yourself.

Andrew Noonan (01:05.724)

Sure. Well, I guess I’ll keep it limited to my my experience in kind of like loyalty and maybe I guess payments, but I kind of kind of been in the loyalty and payment space for a little over 15 years. I started this kind of journey at a transaction processing company that managed transactions for gift cards and for loyalty programs. Did that just… for about a year and a half, moved to the Hudson’s Bay Company, which just recently closed its doors after about 340 years. But over there, I managed some aspects of the HBC Rewards Program, as well as the gift card program over there. And then from there, I went to what was Group AMIA shortly after it became, sorry, Group Aero Plan.

Shortly after that became AMIA, which was a proprietary loyalty program that actually owned the Aeroplan program, as well as the NECTA program in the UK. And so they managed a number of loyalty programs and then supported loyalty programs. I started doing some work for a Canadian bank there, mostly on the redemption side, then moved over into the Aeroplan business on partnerships. Took over leadership of our affiliate program in I guess about 2017 Just something, you know, I generally had some some interest in and saw some potential and raised my hand Overtook the program which is our our aeroplan east or now a kind of a core of what I do at your your aeroplan slash your Canada so I oversee our overall our e-store. again, initially it was the affiliate piece of it, which is what kind of powers our earn relationships. But now I oversee the redemption side of that business, the overall platform. And then fairly, I guess over the past 12 months or so, I actually kind of going back to some of those gift card routes, took over the Ear Canada gift card product. I also manage our insurance portfolio and couple of other things so can find the time.

Will (03:18.764)

That’s a lot going on right now and an interesting journey to get there. We’re going to dive in a little bit on some of the Aeroplan stuff today, but I think before we go in, maybe you could just help our listeners understand the breadth of Aeroplan. I think a lot of people know these little programs as a points collection program and that’s really all they know about them. Maybe you can just help us understand the breadth of what’s going on.

Andrew Noonan (03:41.543)

Sure. mean, at its core, Aeroplan is, you it is a frequent flyer program at its core, but it’s certainly a lot more than that. And when I say at the core, you know, mean, for the organization, yes, the primary point of the program is to build stickiness with our customers and obviously have them fly your Canada. what the program does, I think, is it brings a lot more relevant, like everyday, the program is not everyday relevancy to our members. So Aeroplan…

I don’t know what our official numbers, believe, maybe most recently about 8 million Canadians are part of the program. And while they’re earning points and interacting by flying with Air Canada or Redeem puts it, they can also, we’ve got credit cards with two of the five major banks in Canada with American Express, can earn points at Starbucks, you can earn points at Uber, you can earn points.

Throughout your travel journey, so whether it’s booking, you know a hotel it’s renting a car. It’s Yeah, I think anything kind of you know that again with uber like it’s it’s taking an uber to the airport or to your Hotel or to your Airbnb or to wherever you’re staying and so we what we try to do is again build a program that is relevant I think a to your entire travel journey, but then also to your general kind of life when you’re not actually even traveling. And so a lot of, you what I do on our eStore is a lot of that everyday engagement. So it’s finding ways to earn when you’re shopping online. It’s redeeming points for gift cards and for merchandise and, you know, for other things when you don’t necessarily want to use those points for travel. so again, what we’re really trying to do is be, you know, a part of our members’ lives, you know.

I think every day and bring them real value and be their program of choice. And that supports again, them having a credit card with us or working with the group of partners that we have and building engagement with those partners and making that again, a part of their everyday life.

Will (05:49.39)

I think that makes a lot of sense to, know, sometimes I think loyalty programs or rewards programs on the surface, you you think you understand them, but when you hear this, you know, there’s just so much more going on and there’s just so much more that can be done with these kinds of programs. I think that’s like very exciting. When you look at that eStore and the partnerships you’re building there, you know, what are some of the key challenges that you’re seeing today in making that successful? Like, and engaging in that everyday life?

Andrew Noonan (06:13.776)

Yeah, I think one of the things that we, like specifically on the e-store, at least in the earn side, and where it really, I think, ties into kind of the affiliate business is probably some issues we occasionally see with tracking. so where I think there’s an issue there is having the member understanding how they’re earning points, and if they’re not earning points, why are that not earning points, and ensuring that that communication is kind of.

clear to the member and that we were able to build trust with our member that things are going to work out the way that they should. think with any loyalty program, trust is extremely important. so tracking again, falls into that is that if something doesn’t track properly, whether because somebody goes to another site in their journey or because they didn’t consent to a certain brand’s consent platform that can obviously break a transaction, that creates a problem because it doesn’t often make sense to the end user, to the consumer, to the member, why something is not working. I’ve enrolled in the Aeroplan program. I’ve accepted that Aeroplan is going to share my data with partners of the program and I’ve signed up for that.

If it doesn’t happen because of a reason that, you know, maybe it’s something that I, the member, have done, but I don’t even realize I’ve done it, that I think can, yeah, can certainly present a challenge.

Will (07:44.182)

And are you finding any strategies that you’re finding more effective to help get that education into the customer or is this still very much a work?

Andrew Noonan (07:53.165)

both. mean, I think we’ve we’ve done a we’re continuously doing a better job. I think of educating. so whether that’s, you know, the beginning of a shopping journey, making sure that people understand, you know, again, what is going to be eligible for earn what is not going to be eligible for earn, but then also, you know, post transaction building things into a member’s order history to help them, again, understand why, you know, like if something does go wrong, what went wrong, why it went wrong, hopefully, preventing that from happening in the future. I we certainly do have ways of supporting our members and compensating them when that happens. But, you know, I mean, we obviously want to avoid it happening. I think, so with that said, yes, we’re making progress, but there’s definitely more work that can be done. I mean, in an ideal world, if a member for us, again, is agreeing to our privacy policy and is agreeing that we are

You know going to share information again with with a merchant that we’re working with It would be great that that can kind of help govern that relationship and if a person, you know Doesn’t accept cookies and not really realizing how that is going to impact their relationship with aeroplanes and earning points You know, there was a way around that that we could support You know, and not in any way saying we don’t want to obviously, you know our members deserve privacy, if again, if they’re looking to, you know, they’re actively looking to go to our site and are clicking, you know, a button to say, want to go or point somewhere, they’re obviously doing it with intent. And I think there’s an understanding, generally speaking, that there’s a relay of data to support.

Will (09:21.857)

sure.

Will (09:39.822)

Yeah, that makes sense. I think what’s interesting as we talk about these points and as we look at the city of like, know, tracking that journey, there’s something really interesting which is kind of like, to what end is the points, right? Like why does someone collect points and how do they collect points? And I think one of the things we talked about before the show was just this difference between, you know, someone who’s a point collector who might be out there shopping every day using that kind of a part of the product or someone who’s maybe collecting points through their… by accident through their air travel, whatever it is, but maybe you can just help us understand, how do you think about the different types of personas collecting points, how do those affect your business, and what kind of objectives are you hoping that they achieve for you?

Andrew Noonan (10:21.136)

Yeah, I mean, I think for Aeroplan, we have, well, I mean, we have a number of different, certainly, personas that you can look at. think, you know, two that may be kind of, you know, really jump out, stand out is one, you’ve got people who are just very loyal to the airline. And that kind of, think, is often the fundamental of what makes up a frequent flyer program, right? And so you’re rewarding people who, you know, sometimes they’re work road warriors and they’re flying every week or maybe their leisure road warriors. I don’t know but they’re you know, there are people who are flying with the airline Quite regularly again. Sometimes it is due to work and so, know We want to obviously ensure that that you know Those customers are continuing to fly with your Canada and you know the behaviors are gonna see there is you know They’re often going to again earn a lot of points through flight. They may participate in other areas of the program and then how they redeem those points can be, they potentially are again going to continue flight. But in some cases, those people are flying with a high level of frequency where they’re now looking for other ways to kind of redeem those points. So they may go and say, I’m going to redeem for a MacBook. I’m going to redeem for a gift card. I’m going to kind of take this route. so they’re frequent flyer program, sorry, they’re frequent flyers who are going to part of the program. And then you get another subset of people who, probably a larger subset.

People who are maybe are infrequent travelers. They might fly two or three times a year. I not people who are not traveling at all, but they want to find out ways to help pay for that next trip. so those are people who you see often engaging with all sorts of the program in the everyday piece. They are people who are linking their Aeroplan account to their Starbucks account. They’re linking it to their Uber account. They often will have a credit card with us.

And they’re looking for all the different ways that, you know, they can engage with Eero plan. And most cases, those people are ultimately again, looking to fly. And so they want to earn those points. They want to, you know, be able to take a flight. They, know, maybe they’re, you know, they, really want to fly in business. And so they’re, you know, the, that’s going to cost more points. And so, you know, they’re going to be very engaged in the program there because it’s going to help kind of drive that. And so I think those are kind of like two ways we see in both.

Will (12:42.766)

you

Andrew Noonan (12:43.28)

both sets of people are highly engaged in the program. They’re just, you know, engaged in different ways. And I mean, you obviously do get members that are both, you know, those are often, you know, obviously our most valuable members are gonna be ones who are, you know, both very interested in flying with the airline, but also, you know, the other offering. And so they, you know, they definitely compliment each other, but at the same time, you know, if you’re not a road warrior, when it comes to, you know, flying, quite frequently, there are ways to be able to, again, engage with the program and earn points. So, you you can take a flight every year and at the same time, you know, if really your main interest in the program is, you you love your Canada, but you’re not as interested in other aspects of it. You know, we have a great program there with a suite of redemption options where if you don’t want to fly, you have, you know, lots of different ways you can also then redeem those points. So, yeah.

Will (13:39.118)

You know, it’s always fascinating to me once again when things aren’t always exactly, they’re not as simple as it sounds. It’s still, I think, fairly straightforward and logical, but it’s always fascinating when we get to these details. I think kind of flipping away from the kind of like the different types of user personas, what’s really interesting to me is thinking about like, you have a bit of a different loyalty relationship with your partners, right? So in a lot of other kind of loyalty type offerings, you don’t have this idea where your customer is also.

the user of that loyalty program for, we were talking about more of a partnership economy here. So I’m kind of curious, like, do you find there’s ever dynamics where the brands that you’re partnering with don’t quite understand the relationship you have with your user base? find that ever it gets kind of lopsided or maybe too aggressively focused on one thing or another?

Andrew Noonan (14:27.484)

It can. mean, you know, we work with, I believe today about 270 brands and some of them, you know, I think if the person or the people who are, you know, often leading a partnership are active in the program, you know, obviously we’ll have better understanding of it than people who don’t. think, you know, understandably so a lot of brands are going to be focused on, you know, what their own KPIs are and whether that is you know, acquiring new customers or that is just driving sales, you know, that is a lot of where their focus is. And again, I think that’s understandably so. But I think if you’re going to be working, you know, as a part of a loyalty program, especially a program that you’re not managing, I think it is, it’s important to kind of understand, I think, the different facets of the program, because, you know, that person who’s our member is also your customer. And, you know, so the way that they experience Aero plan will reflect, you know, either directly or potentially indirectly or subconsciously with with how you you know view the brand itself and so if you have a good experience with the aero plan and you know And that member or the customer has a good experience with aero plan You know their earning points. They’re getting something in return. They feel those points are valuable that is going to reflect of course Well, you know how the customer views your brand and you know likewise for us if we’re going to be sending our members to go shopping with a certain brand, we want them to have a good experience because if they don’t, that could reflect poorly on aero plan. And this kind of gets back to some of the tracking pieces we talked about earlier is that if a person doesn’t get their points, you’ve got, like the brand’s got an upset customer, we’ve got an upset member, it’s the same person, but we kind of have a…

Will (16:05.336)

Mm-hmm.

Andrew Noonan (16:18.958)

a duly vested interest in supporting that person and ensuring they have a great experience. And so I think if you, you know, with any partner you’re going to work with, I think especially in loyalty, it’s it’s important to understand what the overall, you know, kind of value proposition is, what your customer is getting out of it.

Will (16:37.614)

Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. think it’s kind of, one of the interesting things here is that you also have like this membership base to protect, I guess, right? Like it’s kind of an interesting idea there. And I know everyone’s got their membership base protected. You just have a very nuanced details here. But kind of taking the inverse of that, you have a membership base to grow. And that’s obviously one of the main objectives as well. So you’ve got to keep getting new members in there. And we talked about before, a little bit before the show, but I’ve seen it online, you’ve got your family sharing features.

And I was actually just flying home on Air Canada from Austin the other day, yesterday literally, and I was in my airplane checking it out and I noticed there’s this kind family activation feature. Maybe just for context, you could explain that to the audience here, but then also I’m really curious, how does that work and does it have a meaningful impact on people’s engagements in the program? Does that drive anything different for you?

Andrew Noonan (17:33.191)

Yeah, I think redemption is a really important part of Europlan, right? And we actively want our members to not just earn points, but also redeem points, right? And if they get value from those points again, you build a secular relationship where they’re earning the redeeming and that is the behavior you wanna have. And so family sharing, I think allows again, like as it says families to share their points.

You know, and so if I am, you know, again, that frequent flyer and I, you know, I don’t know exactly what to do with my points, but I, you know, I, one of my kids may be, my kids, my kids are a little young, but if you use the travel on their own, my oldest is eight. But if you have, if you’ve got teenage children and, know, or maybe they’re at college or something, you know, they want to be able to use those points to fly.

Will (18:12.96)

Hahaha

Andrew Noonan (18:24.988)

It’s giving that family unit a way to get value out of the points and they see more value in the overall program. And a lot of travel, again, outside of that road where you travel, especially leisure travel, families do together. I people do individual trips, couples do trips, but families do trips. And so I think we see that family unit in how they interact with the loyalty program.

It can be again as a family unit. so it really, think again, just it delivers more value. Someone doesn’t feel like those points again are limited to how they necessarily want to use them. You know, I mean, you can still transfer points to other individuals, but this allows you to do it in a way where again, you can see the family and how it’s earning points together. There’s no fees for transferring between your, you know, your

Will (18:54.446)

Mm-hmm.

Andrew Noonan (19:19.322)

your family subset that you create. And so yeah, for us again, it’s just another way, think, well, a great way to deliver value to our members and help them redeem those points.

Will (19:33.346)

Wonderful. mean, I anywhere where we can get more of that, you know, social connectedness with this, family unit or other unit, and I, you know, to deliver that value sounds, sounds like a wonderful, wonderful dis-sharing program. I think one of things I look at now is, you know, where does this go? You know, I know everyone’s talking about AI. I’m not sure if AI has a place in loyalty, but like, where do you see this industry go and where do you see everything, you know, advancing in the next little while?

Andrew Noonan (20:02.128)

Yeah, think this is something I think it kind of comes up all the time is that as individuals, people, we are just constantly inundated with different types of communication, right? And whether that is communication we receive through more traditional methods, whether it’s like television or email or it’s social or it’s different applications. You’re getting tons of different messages. You’re getting different messages when you’re… driving your car, you’re getting messages when you’re going for a walk, you’re getting messages when you’re on your computer, when you’re on your phone. And so I think where AI can kind of play a role, I think, is bringing more relevancy to the individual. And for us, as a loyalty member program, we do obviously collect data through that program. And I think what we can better do, and we always strive for relevancy, but I think where AI can be a really important tool is is again, bringing more relevancy into the messaging. And so that’s like a, what you are sharing with, you know, with the members. So, you know, if we have a, you know, you’re gonna earn bonus points on flying to Paris, but we see that, you know, this individual really only, you know, traveled domestically, then that might not, you know, be super relevant. And so I think, you know, we can carve a more relevant message, but then I think that it’s also like how you convey that message, right? And so, the more you know about an individual, hopefully again, the AI can ultimately also convey that message to a person in a way that it’s engaging, right? And that they’re gonna want to read it and it’s gonna help them get through, again, all that clutter, whether it’s again, like just messages that are getting pushed via your social or a ever growing email box of emails that you don’t read, it’s something that can begin like.

it’s gonna get the attention of the person and I think you’re gonna get that person’s attention by being relevant and they’re gonna wanna engage with you if you’re giving them an offering that is relevant to their needs and their wants.

Will (22:09.902)

Yeah, and I can only imagine those more relevant offers also allow you to tune the actual business outcome for yourself as well, right? You know, the last thing you want to do is offer the trip to Paris to the person who flies to Paris every week at full rate. You know, there might be some interesting things like that to play with too.

Andrew Noonan (22:26.222)

Yeah, for sure. mean, yeah, we’re looking for different ways to certainly drive engagement. And yeah, sometimes it could be, again, something that’s familiar if that drives, obviously, the business outcome that we wanted to drive. But the outcome may also be, hey, we know you like this. Maybe you may also like this. And so doing that and driving relevancy based on like for like is something we’ve been doing.

you know, for quite some time, think before like AI was the buzz that it is, but I think it, you know, it can certainly allow us to do that a lot better and faster, you know, more relevant on external factors, right? Like you could offer certain things depending on what the, you know, the weather is or where someone happens to be at the time that they’re reading that message. And, you know, if AI can again help us better deliver that message and deliver something that’s more relevant, then

Will (22:58.966)

Yeah.

Andrew Noonan (23:25.786)

Yeah, I think it can be a benefit for the member, but it certainly can be a benefit for our business. It can be benefit for our partner’s business.

Will (23:34.67)

Well, we learned a lot of great stuff here today, but Andrew, if there’s one thing that you can have someone take away, someone who’s maybe running their own program or about to start a program, what’s kind of the one key message you’d hope that they take away today?

Andrew Noonan (23:48.123)

Yeah, I think again, the value I think of understanding like what how these partnerships work and what, you know, if you look at that individual, again, who’s the sheer customer who’s the key or the shared member, you know, again, recognizing that that is that, you know, it is the same individual and, you know, how important it is that you understand again, what their journey is with not just in your own business, but with your partner, right. And so if you’re going to partner with a loyalty program, you need to know like all the ins and outs, maybe not, but you should understand, I think, the fundamentals because your customer is a part of that program and if they’re going to have a good experience, a bad experience, and how you can shape that so it can be a better experience, I think it’s really important. And if you’re on the other side and you’re managing the loyalty program, again, I think it’s important to look at who you’re partnering with and making sure that what you’re bringing to your member.

is something that they can trust in, that they’re getting value from, that they’re gonna have a great experience. don’t wanna, again, you certainly in loyalty never want to damage trust. And so I think, again, that trust is very important and the trust, again, can come from what you’re doing, but it also can come from the partner you’re working with. And so be mindful of who you work with and understand again.

what your customer or member is going through in their entire journey.

Will (25:16.12)

Wonderful, I think that’s a great way for us to end this episode. Such a great conversation here, Andrew. Before we break though, where can people find you if they want to reach out, they want to connect and learn more?

Andrew Noonan (25:27.034)

Yeah, LinkedIn probably the easiest way. I don’t post a ton of content myself. just kind of focusing more time on my kids. if somebody, my family, wife as well. But no, if somebody has any questions, wants to reach out, you you just Andrew Noonan on LinkedIn. I’m generally quite responsive on there. So if anybody wants to… partner or learn more about our business or the Aeroplan program or anything like that, probably the easiest way to get a hold

Will (26:01.462)

Well, thank you very much for your time, Andrew. Just very much appreciate it.

Andrew Noonan (26:05.67)

Thank you, it’s been a pleasure.