Last week saw the launch of a new frequent flyer program in Australia celebrated with 5,000 lucky members getting $100 flight vouchers. And there is another 2,500 vouchers to be won. But this program is a program with a little bit of difference to what we are used to. At first glance it’s not really a frequent flyer program, and the name says it all – welcome to the Tiger Australia Infrequent Flyers Club.
Tiger has had something of a troubled start to being an airline in Australia. Originally Singaporean owned, its way of doing things certainly did not go well with many of its travellers. No connections meant exactly that, if your first tiger flight was late and you missed the second – that became your problem. Missed check in by a minute? – sorry flight closed, no refund. And then there was the grounding by CASA while some safety issues were sorted out, such as going below the minimum safe altitude on more than one occasion.
Since the grounding there have been some big changes at the airline. New management was installed at the top, expansion of routes ceased and a new majority owner took the reins, Virgin Australia. They have even changed the food served on board
Highlights: – a decent looking bacon, egg and cheese hot roll ($11) – a full size bottle of Yellowglen Yellow available! (750mL, $25) and – a very impressive (considering) selection of snacks available for purchase. Of interest also is this little reminder: “our new tigerair menu is not designed by neil perry or served on designer plates…Nice touch!
Despite all the changes, it seems its going to take a bit more than just fancy food and new staff to make more fly tiger, so the Infrequent Flyers Club was born.
At the moment there are status levels, you pick your own when you print your card (no bulky marketing material mailings to be seen). Bag tags, you guessed it, print your own. It even offers easy to accumulate points, by playing games on their site, which are worthless as there are no redemption options!
Tiger seem to have created a mailing list posing as a flyer program, something of a parody of others it competes with. But mailing lists don’t normally need date of birth details or physical address. Perhaps it is a program pretending not to be a program? Time will tell.
In the meantime, were you lucky to score $100 worth of free flights, will you fly Tiger in the future. or are you planning to grab the remaining 2,500 $100 vouchers on offer? Join the conversation HERE.
