Citibank hosts an only invitation-only community of American AAdvantage co-brand cardholders. They provide incentives like gift cards for participation. And they’ve just sent out another round of invitations.
This isn’t the first round of invitations, and some members have been offered miles in the past just for joining. So far members of the community report back little of value, but the concept of listening to customers is certainly a good one.
Hyatt, for years, maintained a similar invitation-only community where they’d engage members on questions like what new toiletry brands to select (they’d send out samples) and seek input on how benefits delivery was working in practice at hotels. They also ran live chats with senior executives.
Over time the Hyatt community lost its way and needed either a reboot or to be closed down, and last year they decided to close it down. Maintaining a vibrant community is hard. Engaging members regularly is hard. And actually making productive use of feedback is hard. What other brands have found is that it may not be the most efficient way to get the feedback they need — although it can certainly be a strategy to employ when there’s an active need for feedback and existing channels aren’t working.
The AA/Citi “Communispace” was nowhere near worth the time. I spent about 3 years on it and never received anything of value for my participation
It seems a bit counter intuitive to have a group exchanging tips and tricks when AA goes pretty far out of their way to see that involved loyalty members don’t get much value from the program, especially in premium cabins. OTOH, maybe this is to balance out AA’s actions.
I would like offer the following feedback. Aadvantage miles are virtually worthless and I would not put a nickel of spend on the card. But I am glad to share lounge access with my family. Now that same day AA travel is required to use the lounge, I will probably drop the card. For as little as I fly AA now, day passes would be cheaper.
PS please fire Doug
Citibank is incredibly stupid
What they have done /are doing to Citi Prestige by gutting benefits
American Express will soon be eating their lunch or better said gobbling their
market share and profits
If participants receive a gift card or miles, do they have to footnote every post/comment/feedback with disclaimers that they may have received compensation…..
Will innocent political commentary trigger censure or IP address blocking?
Will my APR go up if I don’t make any comments after joining?
I was invited to take the survey but then told I didn’t qualify. I was wondering what are the “correct” answers to qualify or which answers disqualify?