Held in Amsterdam in October 2025, the Loyalty & Awards Conference brought together leaders from the airline, hospitality, and technology sectors to explore the next chapter of customer loyalty. Organised by Global Flight, the event has become one of the most influential global forums for loyalty professionals, where data, technology, and strategy converge to shape the future of engagement. Three key themes defined this year’s discussions:
- From transactions to experiences: Focus on building emotional loyalty and trust, not just transactional reward programmes.
- AI-driven personalization: Use data and AI to create hyper-personalised experiences and anticipate customer needs.
- The power of connected ecosystems: Success now depends on strong partner networks that offer customers flexibility and relevance.
Across three days of panels and keynotes, one message was clear: loyalty is evolving beyond points and perks towards trust, emotion, and meaningful connection, reframing how the industry defines value in every interaction.
Beyond Transactions: Building Emotional Loyalty and Trust
Historically, loyalty programmes in the airline and hospitality industries have operated as reward engines: earn miles or points, redeem them for flights, stays, or upgrades. Yet as loyalty becomes increasingly about connection, conference discussions revolved around a simple but powerful idea: design a programme you’d love yourself.
Engagement now outweighs transaction, and loyalty programmes are proving it. Once seen as marketing add-ons, they’ve become financial powerhouses, generating recurring, high-margin revenue that often provides more stability than core flight operations. But as loyalty matures, the marketing around it must also evolve. These are no longer just reward schemes; they’re relationship ecosystems. Communicating that shift, from transactional perks to trusted partnerships, is now one of the main industry challenges. By focusing on transparency, recognition, and shared value, airlines can strengthen trust and foster deeper emotional connections with each frequent flyer. This may take time, but the benefits are clear.
In 2024, five major US airlines reported more than USD 28 billion in loyalty programme revenue, a figure that underscores how these initiatives have evolved from cost centers into some of the industry’s most resilient profit drivers. That financial strength explains why loyalty is being reimagined as a growth engine for third-party partners as well. Retailers, banks, and brands pay airlines and hospitality companies for access to highly engaged audiences, turning reward liabilities into monetisable assets. Airlines, for instance, sell miles to credit card issuers, generating billions annually while strengthening partner ecosystems. As loyalty grows more data-driven, technology is deepening the trust and emotional connection that define long-term engagement.
AI-Driven Personalization: From Data to Anticipation
In loyalty today, personalization isn’t a “nice addition”; it’s a core differentiator. Airlines and hospitality brands are turning apps into intelligent travel companions powered by first-party data, generative AI, and contextual insights from local events. Loyalty programmes now directly boost airline profits through smarter use of data, improved load factors, and stronger third-party monetization.
Customers increasingly prioritize experiences over discounts, and with today’s levels of personalization, curated journeys have become the new currency of loyalty. Customizable AI agents play a central role in this shift: by integrating seamlessly into airlines’ existing platforms, they help optimize operations while delivering hyper-personalized, context-aware interactions at scale.
Still, while AI amplifies precision and scale, the human-in-the-loop approach remains indispensable. True loyalty isn’t built by algorithms alone, but by the empathy, creativity, and emotional intelligence that transform simple interactions into moments of connection. As the industry leans further into automation, maintaining that balance will be crucial, ensuring technology enhances, rather than replaces, the human touch at the heart of lasting loyalty.
The Power of Ecosystems
Loyalty is entering its most connected era yet. Following the evolution from transactions to emotions and from data to anticipation, the next frontier lies in ecosystem collaboration, where value is co-created across industries, not confined within one brand.
At the conference, the conversation shifted towards coalition and ecosystem-based models, where collaboration has become the new competitive advantage. These ecosystems enhance data sharing, flexibility, and inclusivity, allowing brands to co-create value that extends far beyond traditional points and miles. In this new paradigm, loyalty competes on the strength of its connected network, not the size of its rewards catalogue.
Panels highlighted how these alliances are reshaping revenue streams across travel and hospitality. While not every partnership delivers immediate profit, many drive long-term engagement, a metric now as vital as revenue itself. Nearly half of US travel loyalty brands now track customer lifetime value as a core performance metric, and 40% of consumers say they interact more often with brands that belong to connected loyalty ecosystems. This reflects how integrated networks deepen engagement, retention, and insight.
Start-ups are also redefining how value is earned, shared, and experienced, and some of them shared their ideas during the conference:
- Reclaim enables instant, cross-platform verification of loyalty status, delivering personalised rewards in seconds.
- ARCUBE uses AI to convert dormant points into tailored ancillaries, boosting both revenue and engagement.
- ReewardPay turns traditional point liabilities into profit through its innovative “loyalty staking” model.
Together, these examples point to a larger truth: loyalty isn’t a programme to run; it’s an ecosystem to grow.
At the same time, emerging technologies such as Agentic AI are accelerating this transformation. By enabling smarter benchmarking, continuous optimisation, and adaptive A/B testing across partners, AI helps ecosystems learn and evolve collectively, fostering collaboration grounded in transparency and trust.
Ultimately, ecosystem loyalty represents the natural evolution of the emotional and intelligent loyalty the industry is now building: a living network of value, where technology connects organisations and customers through shared purpose, not just shared points.
Building Loyalty That Lasts: Emotion, AI, and the Power of Connection
Loyalty today is everywhere — but engagement is becoming diluted. In a world where convenience is expected, customers now seek meaning, connection, and purpose. The strongest programmes are no longer defined by points, but by the power of their ecosystems: partnerships that create seamless, trusted experiences across industries. Engagement itself has become the new key performance metric, not just financial return. Real loyalty isn’t built through transactions; it’s cultivated through recognition, empathy, and genuine human connection. As technology advances, its role is clear: to amplify care, not replace it. At Globant’s Airlines AI Studio, we help Loyalty Programs to turn data into connection, reshaping loyalty programmes into living ecosystems of trust, relevance, and sustainable growth.
