New Premium and the Future of the Loyalty Program

With more than 30 million members, Miles & More is the largest frequent flyer program in Europe. But what will it look like in the future? With this exciting question in mind, Miles & More—a subsidiary of Lufthansa—turned to us to transform its existing frequent flyer rewards program into a comprehensive, intelligent and digital premium customer loyalty program. In a multi-stage process, we were to find out what premium means in the digital world and how this would be reflected in digital brand management. This is how our first vision project for Miles & More came about.

Imagining the Future of Premium

In the discovery phase, we further developed already defined user personas, adding a customer journey and a touchpoint analysis. Intensive user research provided us with further insights into what status and (new) premium mean in the digital world. How does premium have to look in the future? How do we bring a particular user status to life in the future?

We aimed to better understand the needs of Miles & More’s target groups. In addition to individual interviews, cultural probes proved particularly suitable for the project. These diary studies with users not only provide information about the motivation, needs, desires and behaviors (goals) of the target group, but also about obstacles (pain points) on the way to a positive user experience. With these insights, we started the ideation phase of the project, i.e. the actual design.

Future State Scenario—the Future at its Best

In two ideation workshops, we worked with the Miles & More team to develop ideas and concepts for services, communication and product improvement. Using the workshop results as a basis, we defined an ideal future (state) scenario and outlined the touchpoints in the customer journey relevant from a user's perspective. Based on this scenario, we derived the strategic fields of action.