Amex offers fix for flight reward woes

By SIMON HENDERY

American Express has spent up large on an expansion of its loyalty programme which it believes will solve a big frustration for cardholders over cashing in their points.

A regular gripe from frequent flyer scheme members is that when it comes to booking reward seats with the airline there are never any left on the day they want to travel.

American Express's new Direct Ticket programme attempts to get around the problem by allowing cardholders to use their points to buy seats on three different airlines - Qantas, Emirates and Thai Airways.

The downside is that the scheme is only available on Qantas domestic flights to and from Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Rotorua and Queenstown, and transtasman flights to Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

However the charge and credit card company says it hopes eventually to increase the number of destinations and sign up more airlines.

American Express spokesman Craig Dowling said the scheme would cost the company $15 million in development, marketing and operational costs over three years but would pay off as a way of motivating card members to use their cards.

"It puts our card to the front of their wallet, which might have several other cards in it."

Dowling said American Express's share of the New Zealand market had grown sharply since it introduced an earlier aggressive loyalty scheme innovation - Turbo.

Cardholders who pay an annual fee to join the Turbo scheme earn twice as many award points for each dollar spent on their card.

Mr Dowling said the New Zealand-devised scheme was used in 13 countries.