The Loyalty Newswire from The Wise Marketer
This edition covers: Accor, ARKO/fas REWARDS, Benji, Canadian Consumer Loyalty, Connecticut Tourism, Custom Channels/Thanx, Emirates Skywards, Emotional Loyalty, H Mart, JogPost, Loyyal/GiftOS, McDonald’s, Payit/Rewardz, Shell, Wallet & Banking Apps
FROM THE EDITOR
A busy week across the loyalty landscape, with new programs, platform expansions, and some important signals from the tech world:
◆ American Express and Fanatics are teaming up to deliver exclusive fan experiences and a new co-branded card — a fresh play in the sports-and-lifestyle loyalty space.
◆ Scene+ expands coast to coast at Shell Canada, turning routine fuel stops into everyday rewards opportunities for Canadian consumers.
◆ Lyft launches a dedicated rewards program for drivers — a notable move to extend loyalty mechanics to the supply side of the gig economy.
◆ Google’s AI Mode surpasses one billion monthly users, signaling a fundamental shift in how consumers discover products and brands.
◆ Dollar General’s data strategy offers a grounded lesson in retail media: first-party data isn’t just a competitive edge — it’s the foundation.
◆ Viet Nam leads all APEC markets in loyalty program participation — a striking datapoint for anyone tracking global program growth.
Short Takes this week include TUI’s new global cruise loyalty program, Etihad Guest’s partnership with Bangkok Airways, the Coffee Club’s loyalty overhaul trial, and more.
Bill Hanifin, Managing Editor — The Wise Marketer
SHORT TAKES
● [AUS] The Coffee Club Trialing Loyalty Program Overhaul
● [Global] Air India Maharaja Club Members Can Now Earn and Redeem Points on Air India Express
● [Global] Ant International’s Alipay+ Enables Mobile Payments for Global Travellers in Latin America
● [Global] Etihad Guest Launches Frequent Flyer Partnership with Bangkok Airways
● [Global] Rakuten Group, FamilyMart Expand Loyalty Ecosystem with New SPU Incentive Boost
● [Global] TUI Launches TUI Smiles Rewards, a Global Loyalty Program
● [US] Ally Targets Gen Z, Millennials With ‘Life Today’ Platform
● [US] Retail MVNOs Enter a New Loyalty Era
FEATURED STORIES
American Express and Fanatics Announce Exclusive Fan Experiences and New Co-Branded Card
Amex and Fanatics are combining forces to create exclusive access for sports fans — event experiences, merchandise perks, and a new co-branded card that puts fandom at the center of the value proposition. The partnership extends Amex’s well-established playbook of building loyalty through curated experiences into the booming sports commerce space. For loyalty practitioners, the move is a reminder that passion-based programs — anchored in something consumers genuinely care about — can drive engagement that transactional rewards alone cannot.
Southwest Airlines Selects CarTrawler to Power Enhanced Car Rental Experience
Southwest Airlines has chosen CarTrawler to integrate car rental booking directly into its digital ecosystem. The move strengthens the airline’s ancillary revenue strategy while giving Rapid Rewards members a more seamless path to earning points across the travel journey. As airlines look beyond the seat to capture more of the traveler’s spend, tighter integration between air and ground transportation is becoming a standard component of a competitive loyalty offer.
Buffalo Sabres Elevate NHL Fan Experience with Alchemer’s AI-Powered Feedback Technology
The Buffalo Sabres are deploying Alchemer’s AI-powered feedback platform to capture and act on fan sentiment across touchpoints — from the arena experience to digital engagement. The partnership signals a broader trend in sports loyalty: teams are moving beyond simple rewards programs toward real-time experience management. Closing the feedback loop quickly is increasingly central to fan retention, and AI-assisted listening tools are making that loop shorter and more actionable.
Scene+ Launches Coast-to-Coast at Shell Canada
Scene+ — the Canadian loyalty coalition built on the Scotiabank and Empire Company partnership — has expanded to all Shell Canada locations nationwide, turning everyday fuel purchases into points-earning opportunities. The rollout significantly broadens Scene+’s everyday relevance beyond grocery and financial services. Coalition programs that can attach themselves to high-frequency, habitual spend categories like fuel create the kind of consistent engagement that keeps members active between bigger-ticket redemptions.
How Dollar General Charted Its Path in Data
Stephanie Jensen of Dollar General offered a refreshingly grounded perspective at GroceryTech: first-party data isn’t optional for retail media — it is the retail media network. She noted that data fragmentation is inevitable at the outset, and that the strategic north star should always be cross-channel measurement. The lesson for loyalty practitioners is clear: the membership and transaction data that loyalty programs generate is one of the most valuable assets a retailer owns, and building the infrastructure to activate it across channels is the long game worth playing.
Viet Nam Leads APEC Markets in Loyalty Programme Participation
New data shows Viet Nam topping all APEC economies in loyalty program participation — a finding that challenges the assumption that mature Western markets lead on consumer engagement. High mobile penetration, a young demographic, and the rapid growth of digital payment ecosystems are likely contributing factors. For global loyalty practitioners, the data is a prompt to look more carefully at Southeast Asia as both a growth market and a source of emerging best practices in digital-first program design.
Buyer Caution: Loyalty Management Platform Company Listings
The global Customer Loyalty Management Platform market was valued at approximately USD 4.88 billion in 2025 and is projected to grow at a 13.5% CAGR through 2035 — numbers that reflect genuine sector momentum. However, the underlying company listings in some third-party market reports contain factual inaccuracies and outdated entries. We share this as a useful landscape reference, with the caveat that practitioners who follow this space closely will consistently outperform aggregated research sources when it comes to provider selection and evaluation.
▶ View the market report (with caution)
Payments Policy Developments: From Stablecoins to Swipe Fees
The U.S. payments policy environment is unusually active: multiple state legislatures are weighing bills to remove interchange from sales tax and tip calculations, federal regulators and Congress are considering broader payments priorities, and courts are active on several related cases. Stablecoin regulation is also gaining momentum at the federal level. For loyalty and fintech practitioners, the interchange debate in particular bears close watching — any structural change to swipe fee economics would ripple through co-brand card economics and points-funded reward budgets.
Google Announcement Signals a New Era for AI Search
One year after its debut, Google’s AI Mode has surpassed one billion monthly users, with queries more than doubling every quarter. Google is now upgrading the experience with Gemini 3.5 Flash as the default model, and enabling users to flow from AI Overviews directly into conversational back-and-forth search. For loyalty marketers, this is a pivotal shift: if AI becomes the primary point of contact for product discovery, brands must reconsider how their offers and value propositions surface in an AI-mediated environment — not just in paid search or SEO, but in how programs are described and structured to be AI-readable.
▶ Read the Google announcement
Essential Oxygen Launches Customer Loyalty Rewards Program
Essential Oxygen, the natural oral care brand, has introduced a customer loyalty rewards program — a sign that DTC health and wellness brands are increasingly treating retention mechanics as a core part of their growth strategy. For smaller brands operating in subscription-adjacent categories, a well-designed loyalty program can meaningfully improve repeat purchase rates and lifetime value, particularly when the reward structure reinforces the brand’s health-conscious identity.
Lyft Announces Rewards Program for Drivers
Lyft has launched a rewards program specifically designed for drivers — extending loyalty mechanics to the supply side of its platform. While most ride-share loyalty attention focuses on riders, retaining and motivating high-quality drivers is equally critical to service reliability and brand reputation. By offering drivers tangible recognition and rewards for their engagement, Lyft is making a strategic bet that loyalty isn’t just a consumer retention tool — it’s a workforce engagement tool as well.
▶ Learn more about Lyft Driver Rewards
Please Subscribe to our “Wise and Weekly” Newsletter — published each Friday.