Mumbai: India's top two airlines and food delivery platforms are in a tough competition against each other as they explore partnerships to expand the reach of their loyalty programmes. After IndiGo partnered with Swiggy to reward Bluchips to Swiggy customers on every spend, Air India has now partnered with Zomato to reward Maharaja Club points against Zomato orders.
Aviation Follows Hospitality in Customer Rewards
After the Indian hospitality sector introduced loyalty programmes for their fequent customers, the aviation industry also followed by introducing their unique loyalty programmes where their customers earn certain amount of points as rewards against every purchase from them.
The race to acquire more loyal customers has evolved in cross-sector partnerships where customers can exchange their loyalty points with the partner company's loyalty points.
IndiGo’s Swiggy Tie-Up Gains Traction
In April, IndiGo announced collaboration with Swiggy for its loyalty programme Bluchip. This came soon after announcing loyalty member partnership with hospitality firm Accor.
Under the partnership, the airline's loyalty programme members earn one Bluchip against every Rs 100 spent on Swiggy app for ordering food, Instamart or Dineout.
The partnership became a big hit with the more and more Swiggy customers joining IndiGo's loyalty programme to earn benefits from their daily food and grocery orders.
Air India Joins Zomato in Loyalty Integration
Cut back to Thursday, IndiGo's competitor Air India joined hands with Swiggy's competitor Zomato to integrate the airline's Maharaja Club loyalty programme with the food delivery platform to reward the loyalty club members.
With this tie-up, Zomato users who link their account with the airline's Maharaja Club account will be able to earn 2% Maharaja Points on all food delivery transactions above Rs 499 on the Zomato app.
Moreover, new users enrolling in Air India’s Maharaja Club loyalty programme and linking their accounts via Zomato will receive a bonus of 2,000 Maharaja Points upon completion of their first flight activity with Air India.
Statements from Executives
Sunil Suresh, head of marketing, loyalty and e-commerce at Air India, said, “This partnership is in line with our continuing efforts to strengthen the value proposition of Maharaja Club and our vision of building it into one of the most rewarding loyalty programmes across industries.”
Rahul Gupta, VP at Zomato, said, "We’re always looking for ways to make Zomato more useful in our customers’ lives. With this partnership, customers can earn Air India Maharaja points when they order food on Zomato. It’s a simple idea that makes our product more rewarding and will now take you places - literally.”
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Industry Outlook
Experts believe that Indian airlines are in a healthy competition against each other and trying newer ways to increase their customer base while also rewarding their customers. Sources in the industry said that both the airlines are actively looking for more options across sectirs like banking and hospitality to partner for their loyalty programmes.
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