Originally posted by djw521:
All in all having such a program is probably viewed as a necessary evil by Regent just to be somewhat competitive to other programs. I can not believe any one and I really mean any one would book a cruise because of the benefits. They just are not that meaningfull in terms of financial value. In contrast the airline programs which started this entire trend do have significant benefits for the very high volume passenger or long time user of the airline. I have and do go out of my way to continue to use American because of the benefits of being a long time user of American. Mostly from my working life but makes the retirement life easier.
Looking forward to our cruise on PUBS in September 2007.
The main focus of a "loyalty" program is not necessarily to make you travel more often but, rather, to keep you loyal to one brand. Like you said with respect to American, you stay loyal because of the long term benefits not necessarily the miles you earn on any one trip. I think Regent needs to tweak the program to maintain that loyalty. Free cruises are one way of doing that as you lose out on earning that benefit each time you use cruising dollars to cruise another cruiseline.
