About Pricing Using Redemption Rules
The price for a redemption is usually calculated using redemption rules. Redemption pricing can use the following views:
Points. It is not common to define pricing for airline redemptions using the Points view, because it requires you to create a separate product for each pair of cities, and define the pricing separately for each of those products. It is common to define pricing for tangible products or services using the Points view. For example, you might use the following pricing:
50,000 points for a rental car in London for one day.
70,000 points for one night at a specific hotel in Tokyo.
Points by zone. Some of the frequent flyer programs price air awards based on the zones derived from the origin city and destination city. You create generic flight products; for example, there might be products for an economy class flight, a business class flight, and a first class flight. Then you create rules that determine different prices for these products depending on origin and destination city. For example:
30,000 points for an economy class ticket from New York to Chicago
80,000 points for an economy class ticket from New York to Paris.
120,000 for a first class ticket from New York to Paris.
Points by distance. Other programs price their air awards based on zones derived from the flight distance between origin and destination cities for one or more segments in the itinerary. You create generic flight products, then you create the following rules that determine different prices for these products depending on the distance travelled:
25,000 points for an economy class ticket from 800 to 1,200 miles.
75,000 points for an economy class ticket from 5,000 to 7,000 miles.
110,000 for a first class ticket from 5,000 to 7,000 miles.
Airlines typically provide an option to program members to obtain a redemption award by paying in points plus pay (currency). Members can use this option if they do not have a sufficient point balance for the redemption. For example, if redemption tickets for the member and the member’s spouse require 100,000 points while member’s current points balance is only 85,000 points. Siebel Loyalty programs allow you to set up multiple price options for the same redemption ticket. For example:
100,000 points only
80,000 points plus US$100
60,000 points plus 200 Euros
For an airline redemption, the activities can be grouped together, although the process of grouping the activities does not take place within Siebel Loyalty. Siebel Loyalty handles grouped activities by storing the activities along with their parent activity to create a transaction. If it cannot calculate the travel distance from the parent transaction, then Siebel Loyalty attempts to calculate the distance from the constituent activities if they are present.