Podcast: Travel Loyalty Is Changing Because Consumers Are Changing First

During the Travel Loyalty Online Summit on July 16, Skift Aviation Business Editor Brian Sumers Zoomed with The Points Guy’s Brian Kelly to talk about how consumer spending during the Covid-19 pandemic and how (hopefully) afterwards it will change how airlines, other travel brands, and travelers themselves think about loyalty. We've taken that conversation and added it to the Skift Podcast feed. You can listen to it below, or through your favorite podcast app. Listen Now Partial Transcript of the Conversation Sumers: Thank you for the time this morning. I wanted to start a little bit by asking about your own business, because we see you as a loyalty expert and you certainly are. But The Points Guy is also part of this ecosystem. We know that you've historically made some pretty big money on referral fees, which is great. How is The Points Guys business now because I think it's a pretty good barometer for how the rest of the industry is doing. Kelly: Yeah, I mean, it's for sure a challenge. We, you know, are in the business of credit cards, especially travel premium credit cards and No one's traveling and you know the credit card companies. Right now, we're really challenged, you know, the risk models that they've had for years are out the window right when we potentially we're going to hit 30% unemployment. You know furloughs still happening even in the travel industry. We don't know whether CARES is going to be renewed. There's so many uncertain things in the marketplace. Clearly there's just not a lot of consumer demand for new credit cards, and certainly not an appetite from the credit card company. So we certainly still have our partnerships. People are still getting credit cards, but We've been flipped on our head for sure even personally, you know, I'm I think the biggest spokesperson for travel. I think it makes the world a better place. I started traveling a little bit to Antigua a couple weeks ago. But, you know, fundamentally, I've had this existential questioning of, like, what is my role right now where I firmly do want people to travel safely and I do believe in education, but just looking at the numbers of what's happening in the United States is is is crazy. Luckily, we're owned by Red Ventures, which is a very pr