Wizz Air – one of Europe’s top ten biggest airlines – have announced an ‘all-you-can-fly’ subscription service for just €599 per year.
“Whilst they really do mean ‘unlimited’ clearly there are terms and conditions and I’d flag that you have to reserve your ticket 72 hours before as a minimum” points out Mike Putman from Custom Travel Solutions (CTS).
This development follows Wizz Air trialing a limited subscription service last year on certain routes.
Asked why a travel service provider might want to launch such a service Putman – whose company offers software-as-a-service private-label platform for closed-user groups – points out the recurring revenues and increased customer loyalty alone are worth considering. For example he tells us that “we presume that Wizz will still be charging for ancillary revenues and in some cases they’ll bring a friend along, who has to pay clearly…and all the while they are not flying on a competitor airline, so there’s much to like”.
Equally Putman goes on to point out that not just travel providers like an airline or hotel can offer subscription models, but also online travel agencies or employee benefits schemes – where in return for paying a fee, the user gets discounts and exclusive access to services.
So how should a company go about creating a travel subscription program? Putman points out the need to partner with a third party with experience in this and highlights that even Wizz Air has partnered with subscriptions tech experts Caravelo to achieve this product.
As a final thought Putman observes: “The recent Amazon Prime Day success drove home to businesses in every vertical the growing power of subscriptions models. As a result we are seeing more and more membership organizations & loyalty programs that sell travel – who are our typical clients – exploring this model for travel and approaching us asking how to best operate the tech for once they get those subscribers into their closed user group. We really believe this area is set for massive growth, but that if companies want to explore this they must act soon to not miss the boat.”
