Flights of Fancy

LatinPass learns never to underestimate a motivated consumer.

What would you do for a million frequent-flier miles? For some consumers – one David Phillips, in particular – even buying 12,000-plus cups of pudding isn’t too arduous a task (April PROMO). That’s why LatinPass, a consortium of 10 South and Central American airlines, didn’t think it was demanding too much by running the Bonus You’ve Been Waiting For campaign, which was open to anyone in the world who became a LatinPass frequent flier.

The program was wrapped around an offer for one million miles. To win the prize, consumers simply had to travel on a dozen or so Latin American flights, and book hotel and car rentals in the countries they visited. Not too hard, right?

LatinPass gave consumers six months to take at least one international flight on each of its member airlines, fly on one of its three partner airlines, stay three nights in participating hotels, and rent a car for five days from partner car-rental agencies. (Less stringent requirements were required to earn 500,000 and 100,000 free miles.)

Miami, FL-based LatinPass figured the contest was unique enough to ensure that a few thousand new members would join the frequent-flier program – and perhaps book some trips while they were at it. But company executives weren’t sure what kind of person would actually have both the time and inclination to meet the steep requirements for redemption.

About 200 consumers, most of whom were U.S. citizens – and one of whom was the aforementioned Phillips – accepted the challenge. It took Dan Hacker, a systems analyst from Silver Spring, MD, just a week to meet the specifications. (Don’t let his last name and profession fool you, he did it legitimately.) But he wasn’t the only one: 199 other adventurous individuals also met the requirements.

This was a big surprise to organizers of the promotion, which was developed in-house. “We didn’t create a monster here, but publicity did get a bit out of control,” says LatinPass promotion director Guy Booth. The effort “put LatinPass on the map, but the costs of all the free miles we will have to give away will add up,” he admits.

Hacker’s multi-country journey began in mid-June and ended one week later. He began his trek by heading to Miami from Baltimore on USAir. Then it was off to Venezuela on Aeropostal, to Colombia on Avianca, and to Ecuador on Aces. From there, he flew to Lima and then to Cuzco, Peru. He stopped for a day of sight-seeing to visit the ancient Incan ruins at Machu Pichu because “my wife wouldn’t let me do this without actually seeing something,” he explains.

Hacker next ventured back to Lima, flew to Panama City, then trekked through San Jose, Costa Rica, and Guatemala City. Then if was off to San Salvador, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. But he had to double back through San Jose and Nicaragua to return to Miami.

Hacker traveled lightly, with just a small carry-on bag holding three changes of clothes. All together, he spent about $3,000 for the flights, and was in the air for about 27 hours. “I had fun, I really did,” he says, adding that he can fly the whole family to Europe for free five times with the miles he earned.

Other participants had interesting stories, too. “One winner rented a car in Guatemala, but when the concierge asked him where he was planning to go, he said [the car] was just going to sit in the parking lot,” says Melvie Lopez, the desk receptionist at the Holiday Inn in Guatemala.

LatinPass didn’t do much to publicize the promotion (thankfully). The consortium sent an announcement to current frequent-flier members, and partner airlines advertised on their Web sites. “From there, it took off,” says LatinPass general manager Monica Romero. “But we are so happy with the results. We generated thousands of new members who never even knew about the availability of all of these Latin American airlines.”

Romero says LatinPass membership increased by 50 percent during the first month of the January-through-June promotion. In addition to the million-mile winners, about 150 winners earned prizes of 500,000 and 100,000 miles.

“This was our first promotion, and you can bet we’ll be doing more,” Romero says.

Maybe next time they’ll give consumers a challenge they can’t accept.