American Express: Membership rewards Europe

The Membership Rewards Programme is designed for business travellers. The rewards offered appeal mainly to members of Airline Frequent Flyer Programmes who take advantage of collecting miles on Amex and transfer them to their preferred airline to collect free tickets or upgrades. The case poses the managerial challenge of how to reach the 50% target penetration rate of the programme Amex has in mind and questiones how to include customers of the alternative payment instruments to "the Card" that Amex is increasingly marketing. Amex needs to carefully manage the cost of the programme, by signing low cost deals with partners and by encouraging customers to redeem points preferably on these low cost deals. They wonder how feasible is this option and how co-operative partners could be.