Qantas and David Jones have announced a partnership that will allow shoppers to earn Qantas Points while shopping at David Jones. The new partnership is set to launch later this year, in conjunction with the launch of David Jones all-new David Jones Rewards program.
While it’s being touted as a ‘landmark partnership’, there is still a lot of detail to be announced. For example, there is no indication of what sort of earn rates will apply, or how it will relate to the current credit card offering.
Given we only have a snippet of what they are planning, we’ll take a look at what we know so far.
David Jones Rewards
As mentioned, David Jones have said they will be launching an all-new David Jones Rewards program later in the year. This will be an expanison of the When the new program launches, you’ll be able to earn Qantas Points or David Jones Rewards points. That said, the earnings structure has not been revealed. For example, we do not know how many Qantas Points you could earn on an in-store or online purchase.
Returning to Points
In a way, it represents a return to offering Qantas Points. There was a previous path to Qantas Points through their previous co-branded American Express cards. In addition, members could take advantage of the Membership Rewards program, which allowed transfers to other airline programs.
Following the closure of that card, and the move to Latitude, those option disappeared. The Latitude program offered somewhat more limited options, such as gift card redemptions.
The new partnership does not appear to be tied to a credit card scheme. Whether the new David Jones Rewards program will link in with the Credit Card program remains to be seen.
Points Growth from Retailers
Over the last few years, retailers have become an increasingly important source of points for Frequent Flyers. While this has been largely driven by online retailers, bricks and mortar retailers are starting to fight back.
According to David Jones CEO Scott Fyfe:
Our customers are at the heart of the 187-year-old David Jones business, and we look forward to recognising and rewarding them with a new market leading premium loyalty experience.
“We are incredibly proud to bring together two iconic Australian brands as we prepare to launch the new David Jones Rewards program. Of the 55 million visitors to our physical stores and 110 million visitors to davidjones.com each year we know a large number of our customers are also frequent flyers, so we’re thrilled to welcome the national carrier to our department store and give Qantas members access to the David Jones premium brand curation.
Giving the Qantas perspective, Qantas Loyalty CEO Andrew Glance said
One in two Qantas Frequent Flyers already shop regularly at David Jones, and once live, will offer members even more opportunities to be rewarded when shopping the brands they love.
The number of points members have earned through retailers has doubled in the last five years, and we anticipate it will double again by 2030, as we expand our footprint across a growing range of retail categories.
What about Myer?
For its part, Myer has a partnership with Velocity. While it has some limits, the two companies are expected to deepen their relationship over the next few years. This will include being able to use Velocity Points to purchase in-store.
Final Words
It seems to mark a significant shift for David Jones. While there have been options to earn points through co-branded credit cards, this has been limited to what the credit card program offers. Indeed, they have appeared to have been resistant to the idea of directly offerin points.
There is also the current David Jones Rewards program. This program has been fairly limited in its scope. Overall, it has been limited to special offers or offering birthday vouchers. That said, David jones has been making investments in its customer platforms.
Full details of David Jones Rewards and the Qantas partnership will be released later this year.
