The Rewards of Loyalty

I think Kingfisher Airlines is really overestimating me. Just because I’m a King Club member, they keep sending me all these mails about promos/tie-ups with fancy resorts and 5-Star hotels and stuff. And they say things like “Bringing you the best in luxury because nothing else can complement your king-size lifestyle” and stuff like that, as if I’m some major snooty, extravagantly rich fellow who carries the GDP of a small African nation in his back pocket. I feel like telling them that poor me is just a simple chap who was able to join King Club because I get to fly KF sometimes on office trips – and that on a regular basis KF is unaffordable for me. Only on the odd occasion when I stumble upon a KF ticket priced almost at par with a low cost airline do I end up buying KF.

And yea, also that I was hoping that they would have some nifty rewards point scheme wherein one fine day I would suddenly get a mail from them saying “Dear King Club Member No 12879654321, We are delighted to inform you that you have flown 6,506,756,773 miles on KF. This entitles you to a FREE RETURN TICKET to French Riviera with complimentary stay at some Ritz-type hotel that complements your lifestyle.” Right now, it seems that for all I’ve flown, I haven’t even accumulated a quarter of a one-way ticket from Bangalore to Belgaum :-(

It is the same thing with all the loyalty club schemes that I’ve joined. As a loyal customer of Shopper’s Stop, Westside, Landmark and half the other retail chains in India, I keep hoping for a mail one fine day saying that I’m finally entitled to Rs 10k worth of free shopping at their stores, as a thank you gesture for my continued patronage. Instead, all I get are mails asking me to utilise my Rs 171 worth of rewards by the end of the month, failing which it would lapse. It’s like telling me “Thanks for all that shopping. Here’s a free handkerchief for you!” I’m not kidding; I’ve known people who’ve spent half their salaries buying flight tickets through their credit cards, only to get a “Kabhi Alvidaa Na Kehna” CD as reward from a grateful Citibank!

And just when you think it’s all a hopeless cause and are ready to chuck away that membership, along comes the upgrade scheme. “Of course you’ll get f**k-all as reward with the card you have. That’s because all the cool rewards go to the guy with the Gold membership. Shop for Rs 5000 and you can upgrade for FREE to a Gold membership – this is when you’ll start winning all the cool rewards.” And when you upgrade, you just keep getting all these offers that make you feel all the more worthless, like you don’t deserve to be there.

Exclusive offer for Gold Card members!!!

Get Diamond Set worth Rs 30,000 FREE*

* On purchase worth Rs 3,50,000 and above.

Again, the implicit message being “Oh, you’re the Gold guy, anyway. Rs 3,50,000 worth of shopping is very much a  part of your day-to-day lifestyle.”

My theory is that there is some strange kind of multiplier effect in place when your data is shared, wherein your imaginary wealth magnifies each time your data is passed along across companies. Shopper’s Stop: “Oh, he’s a bronze-card member of Westside. Let’s give him a Silver Card”

Lifestyle: “Oh, he’s a Silver Card member of Shopper’s Stop. Let’s give him a Gold Card.”

Small-time property developer: “Oh, he’s a Gold card member at Lifestyle. He’d be just the person to sell a 500sq. ft plot of land to, some 50 kms from Bangalore.”

On an imaginary level, you start moving up the value chain from a “Young adult who’s just started earning – COULD BE RISKY, SELL WITH CAUTION” to “Filthy rich chap with a hobby of collecting exotic African artefacts and paintings – GOLD MINE POTENTIAL, SELL SELL SELL”. This goes on until one fine day you get a call from some hot-shot builder asking if you’re interested in some prime real-estate at the rock-bottom price of Rs 70 lakhs! At which point you just politely tell them that you would of course be interested, but the problem is you absolutely don’t have the money. Being an optimist, I’m hoping this would lead to an opposite multiplier effect until even the local paan-shop guy would refuse to grant me membership.