New website enables trading and selling of rewards and points
A new person-to-person website lets loyalty programme members sell or trade their rewards and points online.
The Loyaltymatch.com website enables members to put their own value on the items they want to buy or sell, and on the points they are looking to trade.
Brad Ball, president and CEO of the Canada-based company, said one of the problems with reward schemes is that there are several different currencies in the marketplace which can be difficult to use.
In 2005 The Economist estimated there 14 trillion frequent flyer points that were unredeemed worldwide.
Several programmes put restrictions on the longevity of accumulated points so if an account is unused for a year, valuable travel rewards may be lost.
An example of how www.Loyaltymatch.com works is that you can sell points for a particular loyalty scheme to someone seeking a specific reward under that programme, and then use that money to buy an airline ticket, for example.
The website launched in May and has added more than 200 loyalty rewards programmes from around the world to its roster, including Aeroplan, WestJet, Best Western and British Airways.