Paula: Welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty, an industry podcast for Loyalty Marketing Professionals.
Paula: I’m your host, Paula Thomas, and if you work in Loyalty Marketing, join me every week to learn the latest ideas from loyalty specialists around the world.
Paula: So welcome to episode 32 of Let’s Talk Loyalty.
Paula: Today, I am truly excited to be interviewing a woman who runs one of the most prestigious and compelling programs in the world.
Paula: And in fact, perhaps one of the ones that’s been around the longest.
Paula: So Bridget Blaise-Shamai is the Vice President of Customer Insights and Loyalty and President of the AA Advantage Program.
Paula: She is responsible for all aspects of the program, including recognition and rewards for AA Advantage members, all mileage partnerships, AA Advantage customer service, business solutions, and Americans customer relationship management initiatives.
Paula: In fact, Bridget has more than 20 years of experience with American and has held roles in finance, revenue management, alliances, sales and loyalty.
Paula: So without further ado, please welcome Bridget Blaise-Shamai to Let’s Talk Loyalty.
Bridget: Thank you.
Bridget: Delighted to be here.
Paula: Great stuff.
Paula: And we were talking before we came on Irish Bridget.
Paula: First of all, I just wanted to celebrate your Irish heritage.
Paula: And as some of my listeners will know, Bridget is an Irish name.
Paula: And delighted to know that you have some Irish heritage in your own background.
Bridget: I love having Irish in my background.
Bridget: And it’s a real huge point of pride for my mother’s family.
Bridget: Say we celebrate all the fun and celebrations that are Ireland every year.
Bridget: And I certainly look the role too.
Paula: Okay, fantastic.
Paula: Okay, so listen, you run an extraordinary program.
Paula: And as I’ve talked about in the introduction, you have over 20 years of experience.
Paula: So we have loyalty managers all over the world who are really keen to hear your insights and what we can learn from what American is doing in the industry.
Paula: So as you know, I start every show asking my guests about their favorite loyalty statistic.
Paula: So tell me, what is your favorite loyalty statistic?
Bridget: Well, if you’ll indulge me, Paula, with a few, because there are so many important statistic metrics that I look at to ensure that the health of the business is where we want it to be, right?
Bridget: So first and foremost, I look at enrollments in the program.
Bridget: You know, it all is centered around having customers participating in the program.
Bridget: And then what I look at is how quickly are we able to get them engaged with us?
Bridget: It’s one thing to enroll, and it’s another thing to be engaged.
Bridget: And our data really does reveal that there’s a very defined time period where you have that opportunity to engage them, or it’s perhaps not gonna happen.
Bridget: So the enrollment, the speed by which we’re able to get them engaged, and then from there, I look at both breadth and depth of engagement with our program, but with the airline and the whole wonderful network of partners with whom we partner.
Paula: Incredible.
Paula: And actually, I think you’re the first person, Bridget, who has made that point about the speed of engagement.
Paula: Everyone talks about the percentage of engagement, but I hadn’t, I suppose, really thought about that window of opportunity.
Paula: So it sounds like you have some very clear insights in terms of how important that is.
Bridget: That’s right, Paula.
Bridget: You know, we have the wealth of data, right?
Bridget: And it’s only as good as doing something with it.
Bridget: And we do an awful lot with it.
Bridget: And this has been one of these key insights that’s been teased out about you get a defined period of time with most customers for you to do something with the fact that they raised their hand, gave you some important information to get started.
Bridget: Now it’s on you to make sure that you make sure you are relevant to them.
Paula: Absolutely.
Paula: Yes, relevant and respectful.
Paula: And I’ll be dying to hear exactly how you do that kind of stuff.
Paula: So before we get into all of the detail, tell me about your loyalty background.
Paula: Like, how did you end up in this area of the whole world of American Airlines?
Bridget: Oh, absolutely.
Bridget: So if I can take a bit of a step back with you, culturally at American, it’s quite common that you move around.
Bridget: You know, it’s a complicated business to operate an airline, a global airline.
Bridget: So we really have an encouragement for us to have broad exposure.
Bridget: So I am started in our finance organization doing very typical airline type projects.
Bridget: Taxes is a very common part of our industry.
Bridget: Organized labor is a part of our industry.
Bridget: Alliances are a part of our industry.
Bridget: So those are the types of projects and initiatives I was involved with out the gate.
Bridget: And made my way around the company after starting in finance as you had started.
Bridget: Share with the audience at the outset of revenue management and distribution and alliances.
Bridget: And then as a part of returning to finance at one point in my career, I was tasked with being part of a commercial team on the nascent stage of the One World Alliance.
Bridget: So right at its very outset, I was a part of how do we realize more together commercially?
Bridget: And the vision by our CEOs, we had five airlines at the time, the vision, and this is many years ago, was could there be a global rewards program for One World?
Paula: Yeah.
Bridget: And I had no experience or exposure to advantage at the time.
Bridget: And here I was, exposed now to Advantage and British Airways Program and Iberia and Cafe and Qantas.
Bridget: And wow, what a phenomenon, what an extraordinary, almost blessed experience to have been provided, given.
Bridget: And so that was my first introduction, which led ultimately to my joining the organization of Advantage for American Airlines.
Bridget: And so that was many, many years ago, and it was first round of.com, and everybody wanted to partner with Advantage.
Bridget: You know, you had all this money pouring into these companies that no one knew their names, but they were promising time value, and they needed to connect with brands that already had intrinsic value, right?
Bridget: So we were absolutely just bombarded with inquiries, requests to partner together.
Bridget: So the short of it is that became my exposure experience with Advantage, and I’ve had a host of experiences here, you know, from creating the database marketing team, which is why I have such a love of data.
Bridget: I have been the controller to a huge budget in P&L for American Airlines, I’ve led the strategy team, I have led all the partnerships, both airline and non airline.
Bridget: So you think credit card partnerships are a big part of our proposition here in the United States.
Bridget: So really, just through an unrelated opportunity at American many years ago, I got introduced to Advantage and just really fell in love with it.
Bridget: Now, I’ve been in and out of the program ever since I came here, so it’s not like I’ve extensively been here.
Bridget: But I’ve been leading the program for about three years now, and really feel very honored to have this position and to be caring for our customers and our partners in this capacity.
Paula: Extraordinary.
Paula: And there’s so many things that you’ve referred to Bridget that I want to pick up on.
Paula: So I almost don’t know where to start.
Paula: But first one I will comment on is I’m ex-British Airways myself.
Paula: And after the One World Alliance was formed, I was responsible for the communications of that alliance here in the Middle East region.
Paula: So I’m just thinking back to those wonderful times and the extraordinary vision that those airlines came together to create.
Paula: So you’ve done extraordinary work for a very long time.
Paula: So I just want to compliment you, first of all, on building that because it really was the first.
Paula: And I can hear a real passion for loyalty coming through.
Paula: And again, I think that’s something that unites everyone who listens to this show in that I think people who move into loyalty marketing inherently love taking care of customers and inherently love giving something back.
Paula: And often what we struggle with is actually the financial justification.
Paula: So I love the fact that you came from the finance side and you’re also so passionate about embracing the investment side in terms of giving back to customers.
Bridget: That’s right, Paula.
Bridget: You know, one thing that’s one of our defining pillars is to ensure that we have a fair and balanced value proposition for our customers.
Bridget: You know, it is a two way street and we’ve got to be mindful of that and act against that and be good stewards of that with our customers.
Bridget: So we are the representatives within the company on behalf of our customers, ensuring that the underlying value is relevant to our customers and is returned back to our customers.
Paula: Amazing, amazing.
Paula: So I know the program advantage, as I mentioned, I think at the start of the show is I think the second one ever launched really in the corporate world, dating back to 1981, so almost 40 years.
Paula: So where did the initial idea for advantage come from?
Bridget: Gosh, it was such a reflection of the time, you know, we were coming out or we were out of the regulated period of our industry and we had a couple of problems we needed to solve as a company.
Bridget: First and foremost, we had no means by which to track our customers.
Bridget: What it was true then and remains true today, we distribute, sell a lot of our tickets through our travel agency partnerships, right?
Bridget: We have wonderful relationships with our travel agents.
Bridget: And so they are a big outlet for us.
Bridget: But we found that we had no customer information within the reservations that were being booked on our behalf by our agents.
Bridget: And so all the information that was collected was that of the agency.
Bridget: The second part was we had a pretty commoditized product.
Bridget: And the idea by the leadership is how do we create a point of distinction.
Bridget: And so in one fell swoop, the opportunity through what was initially just a numeric code, now it’s alphanumeric, allowed us to both track our customers and create a bit of a personality for the American Airlines brand.
Paula: Love it.
Paula: Love it.
Bridget: Yeah.
Bridget: It’s a great story.
Bridget: Great story.
Paula: It sure is.
Paula: And I don’t think there’s enough people talk about personality, Bridget, actually, you know, because particularly when it is a product that can be commoditized, I think the fact that, you know, the personality of AAdvantage is such a focus.
Paula: I think that’s super exciting.
Paula: And I’d love to hear a bit more about that.
Paula: But what do you think, I suppose, in general, would you say is the most surprising or exciting thing about AAdvantage as a loyalty program, particularly in such a, what I would say, I guess, a mature market?
Bridget: Great question.
Bridget: I love how you end it with it being mature because so much about it defies what would be a business in a mature phase of its life cycle, right?
Bridget: So I’ll ask, I’ll answer you less about being surprised and more about what I love.
Bridget: I love the amount of growth we experience in the program every year.
Bridget: I love the size of the memberships that are less than 30 years old.
Bridget: I love the size of the population that has multiple years of tenure in the program, active participation tenure in the program.
Bridget: So, it’s just like this best-of-all-world set of data that reflect that the program and travel and American Airlines remain very relevant to a broad and disparate set of consumers who were all united by travel and the brand advantage, the brand American Airlines and advantage miles.
Paula: Mm, for sure.
Paula: And I know we didn’t really talk about this before, Bridget, but it just occurred to me, and I know some of this might be commercially sensitive, so if you can’t answer, that’s completely fine.
Paula: But I always love to get a sense even of the scale of the type of team it takes.
Paula: Like, how many do you have between, I’m sure you’ve got, you know, everyone from the tech team to the communications team.
Paula: So, broadly speaking, how many people does American Airlines have just to manage and dedicated to managing the AAdvantage Program?
Bridget: So I, in my, I’m happy to share with you the size of my organization, but of course I don’t want to undersell because there’s a whole lot, many more folks who are participating and actively support the program.
Bridget: But I’ve got over 700 professionals in my organization.
Bridget: Now, that includes a best-in-class contact center.
Bridget: So, the AAdvantage customer service service organization sits in my purview as well.
Bridget: So we have a wonderful set of management professionals who are day in and day out caring for the program alongside our data insights and analytics.
Bridget: And then, and that includes research.
Bridget: But alongside that, we have professionals in our marketing organization, digital, IT, reservations, and sales who also are directly engaged in supporting of the program.
Bridget: So I dare say we’ve got a good four-figure number supporting this really fantastic asset for American Airlines.
Paula: Incredible, incredible.
Paula: Well, 700 alone, as you said, with contact centers and all of the various departments.
Paula: So it’s an extraordinary operation.
Paula: So given all of the data that you have access to and just your awareness of what’s going on in the world of marketing, what kind of trends, Bridget, are you seeing overall in the industry?
Paula: And that’s either within the airline industry, because again, we have a shared passion for airlines.
Paula: But even if, you know, just in general in terms of loyalty.
Bridget: So your questions are so great.
Bridget: So the consumer who is a frequent flyer typically skews wealthier and educated and are typically spending a lot of money on discretionary items, right?
Bridget: So they are exposed to many brands, right?
Bridget: And they’re day to day consuming lives.
Bridget: And so what happens is when they are experiencing a great interaction with another brand in retail, let’s say Amazon, they understandably then have loftier expectations of other brands outside of that vertical, right?
Bridget: So we are certainly subject to that as well.
Bridget: Heightened expectations that may be borne out elsewhere, but are then imposed on our company, our industry as well.
Bridget: So wonderful targets that get set elsewhere.
Bridget: And of course, we work to create our own targets too, but that’s really our reality.
Bridget: So heightened standards, sometimes set by our industry and our company, and oftentimes set outside of our industry.
Bridget: So I would offer no argument whatsoever.
Bridget: Digitization is the name of the game, right?
Bridget: And it’s just an ability to be more frictionless, more personalized.
Bridget: It’s just easier.
Bridget: It’s faster.
Bridget: And it really is kind of more relevant at the customer’s terms, the more compatible way in which to engage and interact.
Bridget: Personalization, as I mentioned within that, is just really important.
Bridget: And, as I said, frictionless ease.
Bridget: It’s just got to be easy.
Bridget: It cannot feel like one more thing on the to-do list.
Bridget: It’s just got to feel just flowing right off the customer.
Bridget: And that’s what we are striving for here all the time ourselves to interact with our customers in that manner.
Paula: Amazing.
Paula: Amazing.
Paula: And just one piece I’d love to know where you feel you’re at.
Paula: And this is purely, I suppose, a subjective opinion.
Paula: A lot of brands talk about personalization and it’s the holy grail and it’s the new oil.
Paula: Do you feel American is doing personalization at the level that you feel it should be done?
Paula: Or where do you feel you’re on that journey?
Paula: Do you think there’s still a long way to go?
Paula: Or how comfortable are you with how you’re delivering on that?
Bridget: So I want to answer that in a way that I find this opportunity.
Bridget: I think it’s important to address it with great humility, because I think this journey of personalization is going to be never ending.
Bridget: Because I think one is going to learn more about our customers and our company and ourselves every day, that we will have some insight from that we’re going to want to action.
Bridget: So I would offer to you, we’re out the gate.
Bridget: And this to me is going to be, if we’re doing it right, it’s going to be an ongoing journey that will fill, we always have opportunity to do better.
Paula: Okay.
Paula: And it’s a great answer, because I often make the point, and I know you’ve listened to previous shows, it always to me comes back to the intention of the leadership.
Paula: So if the intention of the leadership is ongoing improvement, and ongoing personalization and continually making it better, then it always will.
Paula: And that humility will come through for consumers for sure.
Bridget: That’s right.
Bridget: I insist that we approach this with humility and with curiosity, and just always be asking the question, you know, what can we learn?
Bridget: What more can we do?
Bridget: But it’s got to be relevant.
Bridget: It’s got to matter to the customer.
Bridget: It has to be what we can tell the customer once versus what we have.
Bridget: It’s just got to be.
Paula: Yeah.
Paula: Yeah.
Paula: And I think that’s when it becomes an emotionally connecting loyalty program, because again, there’s so many transactional programs out there.
Paula: And that’s when consumers just go, well, that’s not good enough.
Paula: So, you know, you’re definitely getting into that amazing space.
Paula: So it’s incredibly exciting.
Bridget: Yeah.
Bridget: And then we get to, we use travel.
Bridget: I mean, talk about something that’s endlessly emotional.
Bridget: And that’s ours at the core of what we do to engender loyalty with our customers.
Bridget: I mean, we just have just the holy grail.
Bridget: And we have got to make sure we treat it with the respect it so deserves.
Paula: It definitely does.
Paula: And I suppose it’s a particularly difficult time for travel.
Paula: And, you know, with the virus, we’re literally recording this now.
Paula: I think today is the April the 17th and literally releasing next week.
Paula: So tell me, how is American coping with COVID-19?
Paula: And you know, how will the crisis maybe affect the Advantage Program?
Bridget: So I would share with you that American Airlines and our 130,000 employees are approaching this with great resilience and great creativity on how we’re solving the problems and adaptability.
Bridget: And it is a very tough and difficult time for our company, our industry, and just the world in which we live, but I’m certainly very proud of how the people who are American Airlines are handling this and making our way through it.
Bridget: And that starts at the top.
Bridget: I think our leadership is just doing a really admirable job, a very noble job.
Bridget: So we will get through this, Paula.
Bridget: It is true that the industry has had its large impacts in our past.
Bridget: So we will come through this.
Bridget: We will be on the other side of it.
Bridget: This may prove to be like no other, but we will be better for it.
Bridget: That’s for sure.
Bridget: And on the Advantage Program, no argument with our customers flying dramatically less.
Bridget: The program reflects that as well.
Bridget: So there’s not nearly the engagement through flying that we would be seeing on this beautiful April day in 2020.
Bridget: But what is interesting is how much engagement we’re having on the ground.
Bridget: So still the affinity for the miles, still the affinity for travel is bearing out in the behavior that we are seeing in behaviors that have people just reflective of the times.
Bridget: So the co-brand spend or home delivery or wine delivery or retail, all those kind of commercial activities that are well enabled online.
Bridget: You still see a lot of great engagement in what we’re turning on the ground.
Bridget: So while our customers are grounded, they remain very active with the program.
Paula: Incredible.
Paula: And it’s perhaps a message that airlines don’t always have enough opportunity to communicate because there’s so much to talk about in terms of the destinations and the travel.
Paula: So the in the airpiece.
Paula: So it sounds like you’re taking the opportunity to create awareness of a whole other area of the advantage program that might have just kind of slipped below the radar in the past.
Bridget: Or certainly has bubbled up to the top in relevance.
Bridget: And the team is on their game about doing that because it’s only as good as it’s value added to the customer.
Bridget: And the customer ultimately makes that decision and they make the decision how they spend their money.
Bridget: So the team’s done a great job redirecting very quickly to ensure that we’re doing something that’s of value to our customers.
Paula: Fantastic.
Paula: And I saw that you also recently extended the status for your members given the whole coronavirus.
Paula: So tell us exactly what you’ve done and how it came about.
Bridget: So we have always tried very hard to have the customer at the center of everything we do.
Bridget: And as this was clearly, absolutely impacting our customers from flying, which was not their intended behavior, I mean, this these travel directives, and then how the corporates handle it, etc.
Bridget: proved to be uncontrollable by our members.
Bridget: And so here they are grounded through no actions of their own, but had done everything that that was asked of them a year ago in earning their status.
Bridget: And so we certainly knew that we had to both express our gratitude to our customers for that loyalty to us, and be empathetic to their situation, again, they’re abruptly being grounded.
Bridget: So as we thought about it, we knew we wanted to extend the status, that part was clear to us out the gate, but we wanted to make sure that we were also being practical, given the environment, both the fair environment, and the schedule that we are all operating.
Bridget: I mean, we’re all operating fractions of the schedules that we wouldn’t ordinarily be operating.
Bridget: So how could we in current period, so we cared for the customers for essentially next year, but how could we in current period, take care of those customers who don’t have status today?
Bridget: We have a number of customers every year who earn status for the first time.
Bridget: We had nine great weeks starting in 2020.
Bridget: We had lots of customers off to the races, off in pursuit of status.
Bridget: So we knew we wanted to do something for them as well.
Bridget: And for those who already earned status and were the beneficiaries of the extension, they may have been on path themselves for a higher status than what had been extended.
Bridget: So we knew we wanted to do something for them as well.
Bridget: So we also created lower elite qualifying thresholds for 2020.
Bridget: And then alongside that, we wanted to make sure customers were able to realize the value of things like their Admirals Club membership, their upgrade certificates.
Bridget: These are benefits that either paid for or they earned.
Bridget: So we extended those.
Bridget: And then we also wanted to ensure that we incentivize our customers again.
Bridget: Think about that trip.
Bridget: Maybe you’re not traveling right now, but go ahead and indulge in thinking about when you are ready to go, where might you go?
Bridget: So we offered a vacations discount to our elite customers.
Bridget: And then as I mentioned to you a moment ago, we’re seeing a wonderful engagement on the ground.
Bridget: And we had this benefit for many years that we actually retired about a decade ago.
Bridget: And that is, if you spend a dollar on your co-branded credit card, you could earn a mile towards lifetime status in the Advantage Program up to our second level, which is platinum.
Bridget: It was wildly, wildly popular.
Bridget: So in a period of time where I wasn’t working in the program, we chose to sunset that.
Bridget: And it was a unique, it was a point of distinction, though, for American Airlines.
Bridget: And because we saw some wonderful engagement on the ground, we brought that back.
Bridget: We brought that benefit back for the balance of the year.
Bridget: So between May and December, your spend on either a co-branded card issued on behalf of American by a city or Barclays or select, this is a new one, a select international cards because we issue our cards in a number of countries outside the United States.
Bridget: And your spend qualifies for earning lifetime mile status too.
Bridget: So those were the rationale between appreciation, empathy and incentivizing our customers were really kind of the themes we cared for and what you saw earlier this week to our customers.
Paula: That’s extraordinary.
Paula: And again, it is all about empathy because as you said, this is being imposed on all of us.
Paula: And for me, it’s certainly very difficult living away from home, not to be able to travel back to family and friends.
Paula: So if the airline didn’t respect that I really am missing out on the whole industry and penalized me as a result, it just would damage the relationship.
Paula: So a lot of proactive stuff going on there.
Paula: And I suppose we’re coming just towards the end of the interview, Bridget.
Paula: Just want to maybe just generally ask what kind of things you’re thinking about going forward, maybe beyond, you know, COVID-19 or any other kind of ideas that you’re excited about that you see in other industries.
Paula: Is there anything else that you wanted to add in terms of where you’re going with Aadvantage?
Bridget: So I will offer to you that we are really working ever harder about advantage being the point of engagement or relationship for all of American Airlines.
Bridget: It’s just such a distinguishing point on offering that or providing that to the airline.
Bridget: And I think you should expect us to continue to work nonstop on creating experiences that are easy and with as little friction as possible, that they are going to be personalized, that the value exchange that I referenced is balanced and relevant, and that the customer feels that they’re in a dialogue with the airline, with the program.
Bridget: They’re in conversation with us, that we are using what we hear and learn from them back into the business so that they feel that it’s being actioned.
Bridget: So you should expect those types of things to continue and absolutely an undertone of travel.
Bridget: So we’re not flying everywhere we want to be flying today, but prior to this, we were putting just some fantastic dots on the map.
Bridget: And the more dots on the map, the more places our customers are going to be motivated and inspired to travel, which means involved in our program and that we will seek to be interacting with our customers and the channels that they prefer.
Bridget: And yes, digital is a big one.
Bridget: But you know what?
Bridget: We’ve had extraordinary success with our telephone line.
Bridget: I mean, technology from the 19th century has a role still with American Airlines.
Bridget: So look for us to be out there broadly across many channels, but it’s all fueled by our data and insights.
Bridget: And it’s really proven quite helpful to us being relevant, because with relevance, you engender trust and with trust, you have loyalty.
Bridget: And so there you have where we’re going to go.
Paula: That’s incredible, Bridget.
Paula: And again, I suppose there’s another guest recently who mentioned that whole piece around talking on the phone and reaching out to people in ways that might be considered not scalable and not viable, but actually the power of one phone call from anyone in America to empathize with the customer makes an extraordinary impact.
Paula: And perhaps that is the differentiator, because we all know it’s quite easy to send out an email blast or any other form of communication.
Paula: So I love the dialogue mindset to make sure that it is a two-way street.
Paula: Yeah, no, very powerful.
Paula: And the other thing I love actually that you talked about, Bridget, is the vacations discount, because I’m a real planner.
Paula: And I think most of us who, you know, professionals, we’re working hard, you know, so six days a week, sometimes seven.
Paula: The critical thing is to know when’s the payback for me personally.
Paula: And it is all about driving inspiration.
Paula: So I think to use the AAdvantage Program to drive people to think about their next holiday is a very good idea as well.
Paula: So one I’ll definitely be tapping into.
Bridget: Absolutely.
Bridget: You know, we’re encouraging folks to be thinking about it, even though they’re not yet ready to travel.
Bridget: But go ahead and be thinking about where you want to go next and start planning for it.
Bridget: And it’s, it’ll be wonderful.
Bridget: And it’ll be ready for you with welcomed open arms.
Paula: Oh, my goodness.
Paula: That’s gorgeous.
Paula: That’s gorgeous.
Paula: So listen, was there anything else you wanted to add, Bridget?
Paula: I definitely wanted to just, I suppose, as I always do, close with asking what kind of resources that you recommend the loyalty managers who listen to this show should consider reading.
Paula: You know, there’s so many different channels out there.
Paula: So you know, from somebody at your level who’s got this kind of background, what do you recommend to the loyalty managers around the world who are looking for inspiration professionally?
Bridget: I think it’s really important to have strong business acumen in all matters, but I really do draw upon it myself in the role that I have.
Bridget: So you know, I’m an avid reader of many, many, many publications daily.
Bridget: So you know, The Wall Street Journal and The Economist and Bloomberg are just, to name a few, with great religion.
Bridget: I’m reading those.
Bridget: And then I love podcasts, I love tech talks.
Bridget: I follow Simon Sinek, I follow Dan Ariely, I listen to Shelly Palmer.
Bridget: There’s a lot of great, great folks out there that aren’t necessarily talking about loyalty, but they are talking about human behavior.
Bridget: And that to me is really a wonderful source of inspiration and learnings that I then worked hard to apply within the Advantage Program for American Airlines.
Paula: Yeah, yeah, perfectly said, Bridget, actually, I’m also a, you know, constantly curious student of human behavior.
Paula: And I think the older I get, the more fascinating I find it.
Paula: So there’s definitely a shared passion there as well.
Paula: So all of those references that you’ve mentioned, I’ll put into the show notes, as well as obviously links to your own profile on LinkedIn and obviously the Advantage Program.
Paula: So I just want to say a huge thank you from my side, Bridget.
Paula: At the start of this show, actually before we came on air, I did mention that I looked up how your name translates because it is an Irish name.
Paula: So just for listeners, I will share that Bridget means power and strength and noble or exalted one.
Paula: So I think Advantage is incredibly lucky to have you leading its program.
Paula: So I just want to say thank you so much from Let’s Talk Loyalty.
Bridget: Thank you.
Bridget: I’ve enjoyed this very much, Paula.
Paula: Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Let’s Talk Loyalty.
Paula: If you’d like me to send you the latest show each week, simply sign up for the show newsletter on letstalkloyalty.com, and I’ll send you the latest episode to your inbox every Thursday.
Paula: Or just head to your favorite podcast platform.
Paula: Find Let’s Talk Loyalty and subscribe.
Paula: Of course, I’d love your feedback and reviews, and thanks again for supporting the show.
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