DED Press Release - 12382-202 (Friday, September 7, 2007)

First Class!

A Unique Kiosk Solution from Trident Loyalty Systems & DED Ltd

When Qatar Airways' CEO determined that the airline's frequent flyer program - Privilege Club - needed to be revitalized, a key objective was to differentiate Privilege Club as a truly innovative loyalty program vis-Ă -vis the market's existing 175 FFPs.

As part of achieving this goal, Privilege Club decided to break the mould in respect of premium-cabin member acquisition into a frequent flyer programme (FFP). The catalyst being that research confirmed that despite Privilege Club's extensive acquisition activity (online, in-flight and in-airport), a significant proportion of the airline's First Class and Business Class passengers were still not members of Privilege Club.

Philip Charlton, Managing Director of Trident Loyalty Systems had been working on a solution to this problem in partnership with DED Ltd for some time. Having developed the kiosk enclosure and software, Philip consulted DED Ltd on selecting the most appropriate card printing technology for the Trident FFP Enrolment Kiosk.

Located in Qatar Airways' Business Class lounge in Doha, the kiosk enables passengers to sign up for Privilege Club membership by inputting their personal details directly into the system using a touch screen with a virtual keyboard.

Offering an incentive to new members - 500 bonus Qmiles for the flight about to be boarded, passengers are now able to enrol into Privilege Club within 180 seconds and receive their membership card on the spot. Fully personalised, magnetically encoded and ready to use - a great improvement on the FFP industry's average of 3 - 8 weeks to receive a card in the post!

Qatar Airways Business Class passenger enrolments into Privilege Club, using Trident Loyalty Systems' innovative technology, have now exceeded target by more than 150%. The reason the Trident FFP Kiosk has worked so well is because it provides access to Privilege Club at the right time - when the message is most relevant (up to a few minutes before flight boarding), in the right place - when the passenger has time to interact with a kiosk (relaxing in a lounge), and with the right offer - a 500 Qmiles bonus award upon activation.

Trident Loyalty Systems' kiosk is completely interactive and has the upgrade capability to enable existing Privilege Club members to access personal account details, print promotional coupons, print A4 personalized mileage statements, download useful information - such as a Qatar Airways' timetable - to their mobile devices and buy, transfer or gift Privilege Club Qmiles at the kiosk using a credit card.

Qatar Airways is now in the process of installing further kiosks in its First Class, Silver, and Gold Frequent Flyer lounges in Doha. All kiosks use the Zebra P330i. Featuring a magnetic stripe encoder, USB interface and single colour ribbon to personalise pre-printed cards, the Zebra P330i was the obvious choice for this application.