Travel Perks Engagement and In-Store Discounts: Building One Loyalty Loop

We're all creatures of habit, are we not?

And what is a habit, really, except what happens when we make the same choice over and over again until that choice becomes automatic.

For modern businesses and organizations, building member loyalty is synonymous with building habits. In other words, if you can inspire your audience to choose you over and over again (through passion or through ease) until the choice becomes automatic, you've created a customer engagement loop.

In this article we’ll talk about two types of member benefits, everyday in-store discounts and travel perks, that help develop member habits. Each is powerful on its own; but together, the effect is exponential.

Key takeaways:

• Member loyalty is built the same way any habit is: through repeated choices that eventually become automatic. Marketers call this a customer engagement loop.
• In-store discounts and travel perks each build habits in different ways: in-store discounts through frequency (weekly, low-stakes redemptions), travel perks through emotional weight (occasional, high-value redemptions members remember and talk about).
• An engagement loop closes when a program creates its own next reason to be used (through points, status, or stored savings) rather than relying on the member to remember it exists.
• Six psychological triggers including value seeking, loss aversion, reduced friction, identity/status, variable reward, and commitment/consistency explain why specific program mechanics actually work.
• A nationwide in-store discount program doesn't stop at the airport: it covers dining, entertainment, and shopping at the destination, where spending adds up fast even after flights and hotels are paid for.
• Travel and in-store discounts fill opposite gaps in the same loop: everyday savings supply frequency, travel supplies emotional stickiness, and together they cover more of a member's calendar than either benefit does alone.

How an In-Store Discount Program Engages Members

An in-store discount program earns its keep through frequency. Restaurants, retail, entertainment, auto services… these are categories consumers touch weekly, sometimes daily, which means a well-stocked in-store discount program gives members dozens of small reasons to check in.

The number one reward consumers want from their loyalty programs is discounts, coupons & cash-back rewards (with 82% saying so.)² In-store discounts are especially desired. Even with e-commerce (online purchasing) becoming more popular, over 80% of disposable income is still spent in brick-and-mortar stores in the U.S.³ In an economy where more than half of all adults report they are living paycheck-to-paycheck,⁴ loyalty programs that help members save on everyday purchases and necessities can feel like a must-keep rather than a nice-to-have perk of membership.

For example, many Access discount program members report appreciation for discounts that help stretch their budgets and give them a little breathing room.

How Travel Loyalty Benefits Engage Members

Travel loyalty benefits? Now those get members talking. Nobody brags about a discounted oil change, but they would about a fancy resort they got for the price of a 3-star hotel. (Bonus: that’s word-of-mouth advertising right there.) That word-of-mouth value is real, but it’s not the only reason why travel perks engagement belong in a program even though members use them far less often than everyday discounts.

Travel rewards are a highly requested member benefit, especially among younger generations and parents. According to a recent Arrivia survey, 75% of consumers said they'd consider booking travel through a retail loyalty program if given the option. Of course, quality matters. 40% said they would be more likely to book travel through a loyalty program IF it gave them access to better prices and flexible payment options.⁵

Members can save so much in one purchase that it makes a real impact, ensuring they remember and return, even if their next vacation is far in the future. Pairing memorable travel savings with the right incentives is one of the most effective ways to increase ongoing participation.

What Is an Engagement Loop, and Why Does Closing It Matter?

Marketers borrow the term "engagement loop" from behavioral design. An engagement loop is a repeatable cycle in which a cue prompts a member to take an action, that action is met with a reward that makes the member more likely to respond to the next cue.

The best customer engagement loops are self-sustaining. Instead of a one-time customer journey or engagement funnel, loops create a circular path that brings users back again and again.⁶ This happens when the program creates the next reason to use it: points, status, discounts, etc.

Why it matters: McKinsey's loyalty research found that members who cash in benefits spend 25% more than members who are enrolled but inactive.⁷ Antavo's 2024 Global Customer Loyalty Report found the gap widens further with personalization: members who redeem personalized rewards spend 4.3 times more than those who redeem non-personalized ones.⁸ Both numbers point to the same conclusion: the value isn't in getting someone to sign up, but in convincing them to keep coming back.

Ways to Build an Engagement Loop

Every loop-building technique in loyalty is really a psychological trigger wearing a program-design costume. Here are six that show up most often, and the mechanic each one tends to produce.

1. Value seeking. Trigger: people want to repeat the pleasure of receiving something they like. Program solution: straightforward discount and cash-back rewards where the pleasure of a past redemption is the trigger for the next one, robust member marketing to keep rewards top-of-mind.
2. Loss aversion. Trigger: people avoid the discomfort of losing something already earned. Program solution: points-earning programs, where every purchase adds to a visible, at-risk balance, and expiring-points policies that put a deadline on the loss.
3. Reduced friction. Trigger: habits form around the path of least resistance. Program solution: auto-renewal, stored payment and preference info, and any mechanic where the "next action" happens by default rather than by choice.
4. Identity and status. Trigger: people protect a self-image once they've claimed it. Program solution: tiered programs, where qualifying for a level (and the visible label that comes with it) makes the next qualifying purchase feel like maintenance rather than a fresh decision each time.
5. Variable reward. Trigger: unpredictable payouts can hold attention longer than predictable ones. Program solution: surprise-and-delight bonuses, randomized perks, or occasional larger discounts layered on top of an otherwise predictable points or discount structure.
6. Commitment and consistency. Trigger: people follow through on progress they can see. Program solution: progress bars, streaks, and tiered thresholds framed as: "you're 2 purchases from your next reward."

How Travel Perks Engagement and In-Store Discounts Work Together to Build a Stronger Customer Engagement Strategy

Travel perks and in-store discounts both engage by providing a reward so valuable it keeps members coming back in a self-sustaining loop. But each does it in a slightly different way: travel by impressing big, in-store discounts by impressing often.

Together, the effect is closer to multiplication than addition. Here are two ways they build on each other.

Saving at the Destination, Not Just the Booking

Here's where the combination does something neither benefit does alone: it doesn't stop at the airport. A member who booked a discounted flight and hotel still has a full week of spending ahead of them: dinners out, an afternoon at the ballpark, a round of souvenir shopping. Those costs add up fast even after the big-ticket travel expenses are covered.

A nationwide in-store discount program will cover expenses like that as easily at their destination as it does at home. And, if the organization provides both benefits, then the same program that saved the member 20% on the hotel stay can also save them 20% at the restaurant two blocks away.

Access Development is a loyalty program provider that specializes in providing both deep travel perks and the U.S.’s largest private network of in-store, everyday discounts. The average Access member, after saving on flights, hotels, theme park and attraction tickets, dining out and destination shopping (every typical vacation expense) can easily save hundreds of dollars on a single vacation. Here’s what one of our members had to say about having both types of reward at his disposal:

Saving Big AND Saving Daily

Loyalty research increasingly draws a hard line between two kinds of program value: transactional benefits like points and discounts, and non-transactional benefits that create emotional connection. Forrester's own framing is blunt about the first kind, calling financial benefits "table stakes... easy for other brands to copy and for consumers to forget,"⁹ while experiential benefits are what make a relationship durable. Travel perks and in-store discounts happen to sit on opposite sides of that line, which is exactly why pairing them works: travel supplies the emotional, memorable half of the equation, and in-store discounts supply the frequent, transactional half that keeps the account from going quiet in between.

What do members want? It shouldn’t come as any surprise that they want both.

• 79% of travelers say they depend on loyalty programs, and 82% said they'd travel differently (or not at all) without travel rewards¹⁰
• 43% of consumers said they want discounts on everyday purchases, while only 25% of businesses building these programs think that's what their members value most.¹¹

Many organizations are racing to catch up with what their audiences want, but those same reports show they are still lagging behind, leading to 34% of U.S. loyalty program members admitting that they frequently forget to use loyalty programs they belong to.⁹

Everyday savings give lots of little reasons for members to check in frequently, but may lack the emotional punch that makes a program shine. Travel perks help members form deep emotional bonds with the businesses that provide them, but may not be relevant again until those feelings start to fade. Each closes the gap the other leaves. Each makes the other stronger.

Building a Loyalty Program Strategy That Closes the Loop

A loyalty program strategy built around one continuous loop wins on the metric that actually matters: how often members come back.Many of today's travel loyalty programs for corporate travel combine meaningful travel savings with everyday rewards to create the consistent engagement needed for long-term retention. Retention research explains why that frequency is worth chasing this hard. Bain & Company's classic finding, cited by Harvard Business Review, is that a 5% increase in retention can lift profits 25% to 95%.¹² Frequent, low-stakes redemptions, the kind a nationwide in-store network generates constantly, at home and on the road, are one of the most reliable ways to move that number.

More From Our Blog

Want the fuller picture on travel rewards? Travel Rewards Explained: What They Are, How They Work and Business Use Cases breaks down the fundamentals behind everything discussed above.

Endnotes/Resources

1. 1. PR Newswire. EY Future Consumer Index: US Consumers Seek Loyalty Discounts and Human Interaction as Shopping Behaviors Shift.
   2. ebbo. The Ultimate List of Loyalty Statistics.
   3. U.S. Census Bureau. Quarterly Retail E-Commerce Sales.
   4. Yahoo Finance. More Than Half of Americans Live Paycheck to Paycheck. Having These 3 Things Mean You're Doing Better Than 50% of the US.
   5. arrivia. Travel Rewards in Retail: A Loyalty Strategy Worth Exploring.
   6. Leat. Engagement Loops Explained: How to Keep Users Hooked.
   7. McKinsey & Company. Next in Loyalty: Eight Levers to Turn Customers Into Fans.
   8. Antavo. Global Customer Loyalty Report 2024.
   9. Forrester. Balanced Benefits Give Loyalty Programs a Competitive Advantage.
   10. Barclays. Barclays Report Shows Travelers Rely on Rewards.
   11. PR Newswire. 2024 Travel Loyalty Outlook Report Uncovers Changing Consumer Sentiment Around Travel Priorities, Planning and Loyalty Programs.
   12. Harvard Business Review. The Value of Keeping the Right Customers.