Loyalty works both ways

Loyalty programmes are big business in South Africa, the market having grown incredibly in terms of size and sophistication in the past decade.

We consumers get rewarded for supporting a particular airline, hotel group, book store, bank or supermarket; they in turn get something which gives them an invaluable competitive edge: information about us and our spending habits.

But loyalty is quickly diluted or lost if the rewards programmes aren’t administered well, leaving consumers angry and frustrated, as Discovery Vitality discovered last week.

In launching new benefits, the rewards programme woefully underestimated its members response, with the result that they couldn’t make contact via its website, call centre or social media.

On the Discovery website, attempts to access Vitality were met with “Could not load” or “Access denied” and call centre calls were placed on hold indefinitely, leading to its Facebook page being flooded with complaints. Disaster.

Misinforming members about how to go about redeeming their rewards is also a huge no-no.

Mthombolwazi Dimbaza’s attempt to use his SAA Voyager miles to buy an air ticket went horribly wrong for this reason.

On December 19 he made a booking online for an SA Express flight from East London to Cape Town on the night of December 21, using 15500 of his Voyager miles. He was given several options to pay the airport taxes, including cash, which he chose, and the confirmation he received gave him until 6pm on December 21 to pay at any Pick n Pay outlet.

But when he tried to pay at a PnP branch on the morning of the 21st, he was told his booking had been cancelled.

An SAA call centre agent later told him that he was supposed to have made the payment within just eight hours of the booking – a startling contradiction to the information he’d been given.

But it gets worse.

Dimbaza was told to go to the airport in East London for help.

When he showed an agent at the airport’s SAA Voyager desk his confirmation e-mail, with the cut-off time, he was told it didn’t apply.

“They also told me I was supposed to have used a credit card – which I don’t have – to make the booking, as when using Voyager miles only credit card payments are accepted.

“Again, this is not mentioned anywhere,” he said. “In fact, I was given two payment options – credit card or cash.”

Dimbaza then asked the Voyager agent to re-book for him, but by then he needed 16097 miles for the same flight, which he didn’t have.

So he ended up booking and flying with another airline, paying R1899 in airport charges and taxes, instead of the R956 he was quoted with the original SAA booking.

“I’m of the view that I was treated unfairly and demand that I be refunded that extra R942 as compensation, as this was by no means my fault,” he told In Your Corner.

“And SAA should clear up the confusion around payment methods and deadlines to avoid other Voyager members having the same experience.”

Responding, SAA’s media relations manager Tlali Tlali apologised for the “service failure”.

The website should not have given the option of paying cash at a PnP outlet, he said, much less including a PnP reference number.

The payment deadline was also incorrect, he said.

“And the service agents at East London airport could have assisted the member since the original booking was cancelled due to lack of payment, which was not an error on the customer’s side.”

Tlali offered to compensate Dimbaza with 19000 bonus Voyager miles, which he accepted. He also gave the assurance that “steps have been taken to avoid the reoccurrence of the incident”.