All Nippon Airways (ANA), one of Japan’s preeminent airlines, wanted to build a new mileage program based on insights learned during the travel disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic. Having previously trusted Stripe Connect to power payments on their advanced crowdfunding platform, WonderFLY, ANA Group turned again to Stripe to build ANA Pocket, a loyalty and mileage app it says will create “a world where people can live off their miles.”

Advancing the airline industry in the wake of COVID-19

Mileage programs are an important financial hedge for airlines. They help offset the cyclicality of business travel by subsidizing leisure travel, which is generally more consistent. Mileage programs also help enhance the loyalty of an airline’s best customers. The pandemic made the need for this type of stability even more acute by greatly depressing demand for air travel within Japan and globally.

ANA was heavily affected by the pandemic and quickly made changes to their loyalty offerings in response. In particular, they wanted to enrich their customers’ daily lives and engage with them beyond the activities of flying and traveling. To do that, they created a powerful platform that connects partner businesses with ANA Group customers through digital touchpoints.

Thus, ANA Pocket was born: a mobile-based membership experience that allows users to earn points and miles based on the distance of their daily movement through activities like walking, cycling, as well as taking cabs or trains, which they can redeem for ANA flights and travel products.

Building the premium experience

As they planned ANA Pocket, ANA Group knew that they wanted to create a premium offering for members, and needed a payments platform that could support it. With that in mind, they chose Stripe Billing, which makes it easy to implement and manage subscription payments.

"Small details matter when it comes to making ANA Pocket a premier experience for our most valuable and loyal customers. Simple things like ensuring that monthly subscription payments are stress-free, secure, and reliable go a long way in letting our customers know how much we value them. We look forward to working together with Stripe to continually improve our service in the best possible way for our customers," said Rina Hirooka of the business development department at ANA X Corporation.

ANA Group built momentum for the subscription service through first-month-free promotions as well as outreach across a variety of marketing channels. Using Stripe’s dashboard, ANA Group was able to quickly build an operational flow that could respond to billing errors and enhance fraud prevention. This, in turn, allowed them to provide loyal customers with the seamless experience those customers expected.

“Helping ANA take flight again with its new offering is a great stamp of approval in our journey to help more Japanese enterprises transform digitally,” said Daisuke Aranami, country lead for Stripe Japan. “Amidst unprecedented economic and social changes, Stripe wants to be the trusted and reliable partner to help our users become more agile, quickly expand their opportunities, and deploy a powerful financial services technology platform that meets their customers’ high demands.”