Using technology and data to boost the Avios loyalty programme

The client

IAG Loyalty

Avios lets you turn your everyday spending into holiday experiences by collecting Avios on your daily purchases. As the loyalty currency of IAG's airline partners, including major brands like British Airways, Iberia, Vueling and Aer Lingus, Avios plays a central role in IAG Loyalty's growth strategy.

IAG Loyalty aims to provide the best loyalty deals in the world, giving members simple, 'everyday' ways to earn Avios. These include partner credit cards, popular retailers, and finance partnerships.

We partnered with IAG Loyalty to enable customers to spend Avios on complete holiday packages, including flights, car hire, and once-in-a-lifetime travel experiences. Together, we built a market-leading digital loyalty experience that positions IAG Loyalty as the owner of the leading travel rewards programme.

Key Outcomes

By focusing on digital innovation and putting the customer first, together we've achieved some fantastic results:

Growth 183% uplift (from 3% to 8.5%) in hotel booking conversions within the first year of launch
Acceleration 31% increase in revenue delivered in 2024 compared to 2023
Uplift 57% increase in Avios collected in 2024 compared to 2023

The Challenge

Expanding Avios redemption beyond just flights to include hotels, car rentals, and experiences.

This was achieved in several ways:

1. Evolving beyond a one-size-fits-all approach
The existing eCommerce platform wasn’t fully aligned with IAG Loyalty’s ambitions for the Avios currency. Developed and managed externally, it limited IAG Loyalty’s ability to shape the customer experience and respond quickly to evolving needs. The solution lacked the flexibility and depth of integration required to deliver a seamless journey that reflected the unique value of Avios.

As IAG Loyalty looked to grow its travel and leisure offerings, it became clear that a more bespoke approach was needed—one that enabled greater ownership, adaptability, and innovation. This led to the creation of a new, custom-built platform within the Avios.com domain. Designed from the ground up, the new solution brings together travel and leisure products in a way that’s more cohesive, user-friendly, and future-ready.

2. Fuel growth through awareness
IAG Loyalty aimed to grow Avios in key areas like hotel bookings, travel experiences, and car rentals. While 41% of customers knew they could collect Avios on these products, only 21% knew they could also spend points on them.

3. Total cost of ownership
We wanted to lower IAG Loyalty's total cost of ownership (TCO) by reducing monthly platform fees and transaction fees.

THE SOLUTION

A tailored Ecommerce solution for the Avios platform

Using Next.js as our main framework, along with React for a fast and responsive user experience, together we developed a custom platform, with a bespoke design enabling improved customer experience.

The platform features a design made to boost conversion rates, improve search and browsing, and optimise SEO, and is now more interactive and responsive thanks to improved routing and asset loading. It also introduces unique and custom processes for purchasing hotels, car rentals, and experiences, with new, quicker ways to use Avios.

Driving loyalty through smart, scalable innovation

1. Multi-product basket: For the first time, Avios customers can buy their flights, hotel, and car rental all in one order. This innovative solution creates many cross-selling opportunities and increases the Average Order Value.

2. Building a bespoke promotion service: To offer the marketing team more agility, a bespoke promotion service is being developed, designed to enable rapid, on-demand campaign launches without relying on development support. As an early indicator of its potential, IAG Loyalty manually ran the first '500 Bonus Avios' promotion ahead of the full service rollout. The campaign delivered impressive results: a 120% uplift in revenue year-over-year, a 19% increase in Average Order Value, and a 9% boost in hotel stay duration. These outcomes have validated the strategic direction and demonstrated the impact this new capability will unlock.

3. Data-driven decision making and conversion rate optimisation: By using Google Analytics, IAG Loyalty can gain insights into customers using Avios’ behaviour. This supports informed decision-making and strategic improvements. Google Analytics 4 (GA4) has enabled IAG Loyalty to test, learn, and scale Minimum Viable Product (MVP) features with confidence within Avios, such as the Hotel Sharing functionality. This feature allows customers to share hotel URLs with friends and family. Through data-driven insights, IAG Loyalty expanded Avios’ reach, improved customer engagement and boosted conversion rates.

4. Increasing Average Order Value (AOV) through upsell: Working in embedded teams, we built several solutions to create upsell opportunities. These solutions give customers relevant recommendations at the right time. One example is Avis Extras, where add-ons, like child seats and sat navs, are suggested during car hire purchases. Other developments, such as offering hotel upgrade options, like adding breakfast or a refundable room rate at checkout, also provide more flexible experiences while maximising AOV.

The Results

Measurable growth across key areas

The custom Rewards Platform has delivered transformative results for IAG Loyalty’s Avios currency.

It has driven growth across all major areas, including revenue, engagement, average order value, and Avios collected.

In 2024, the platform achieved a 31% increase in revenue and a 57% increase in Avios collected compared to the previous year. This reflects strong demand and better redemption options across hotels, car rentals, and travel experiences.

Through a mix of real-time analytics, agile experimentation, and smart upsell tactics, IAG Loyalty has redefined what a modern loyalty programme can achieve. With ongoing innovation and a focus on data, they're not just participating in the travel loyalty space – they're leading it.