TORONTO – May 14, 2015 – Air Canada and Spafax are pleased to announce that Air Canada’s Earn Your Wings program received top honours at the Loyalty360 Awards.

Earn Your Wings, a popular gamification program, received the Platinum Award in the Best Loyalty or Rewards Program category during the Loyalty Marketers Association’s annual awards in Orlando, Florida. In its third edition, Earn Your Weeks reached more Air Canada Altitude members and led to an overwhelming 875% ROI.

Gamification is at the heart of Air Canada’s “Earn Your Wings” loyalty program, which is a leaderboard-focused competition that offers digital badges and points (or “Wings”) for completed tasks and challenges. Now available exclusively for Air Canada Altitude members, if a member ends the game in one of the coveted Top 20 spots on the leaderboard, he or she earns an equal share of 10 million Bonus Aeroplan Miles. Members earn wings for all eligible flights with Air Canada. The more badges and wings a member earns, the more Bonus Aeroplan Miles they receive.

“We are delighted to see Earn Your Wings being recognized for its quality and innovation as a leading customer loyalty program,” says Ian Di Tullio, Senior Director, Customer Engagement Marketing at Air Canada. “We take pride in giving our customers unique and engaging experiences and with over 11,000 Air Canada Altitude members returning to play for a second year, this program this program exceeded our objectives.”

“We are proud to have supported Air Canada in bringing to life the Earn Your Wings program. Now in its forth iteration, it is a powerful example of how gamification can positively influence customer behaviour and buying decisions. This award is a wonderful recognition of our combined teams’ work,” says Nino Di Cara, Executive VP, Content Marketing, Spafax.

This third instalment of Earn Your Wings saw average badges earned per user increase by 56%, and average airport visits per user increase by 12%. Air Canada and Spafax won Bronze last year in the “Best Technology in Loyalty Marketing” category. The program had 25,000 users, 44% returning from last year, and 43% of users flew in Premium Fare cabins.

The Loyalty360 Awards by the Loyalty Marketers’ Association were presented at the 8th annual Loyalty Expo, which brought together over 500 executives from leading global companies to learn how innovative brands are building successful and lasting customer relationships.

About Air Canada:
Air Canada is Canada's largest domestic and international airline serving more than 190 destinations on five continents. Canada's flag carrier is among the 20 largest airlines in the world and in 2014 served more than 38 million customers. Air Canada provides scheduled passenger service directly to 64 Canadian cities, 52 destinations in the United States and 78 cities in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Australia, the Caribbean, Mexico, Central America andSouth America. Air Canada is a founding member of Star Alliance, the world's most comprehensive air transportation network serving 1,321 airports in 193 countries. Air Canada is the only international network carrier in North America to receive a Four-Star ranking according to independent U.K. research firm Skytrax that ranked Air Canada in a worldwide survey of more than 18 million airline passengers as Best Airline in North America in 2014 for the fifth consecutive year. For more information, please visit: www.aircanada.com.

About Spafax
Headquartered in London, UK, Spafax has been operating in Canada since 1992 and specializes in entertainment, content marketing, media sales, events, technical services, brand alliances, and public relations. Its two Canadian offices are located in Toronto and Montreal, with a staff of over 60, and specialize in servicing the travel, luxury, automotive and financial service categories. Clients include Air Canada, Fairmont Raffles Hotels International, Bombardier Business Aircraft, Investors Group, Tourism Toronto, Mercedes-Benz, Delta Hotels and Resorts and VistaJet. Spafax is a tenthavenue WPP company. www.spafax.com

Spafax facts and figures
30 years creating, curating and acquiring content
30 years working with the world’s leading brands
15 offices worldwide

500 plus industry awards over the past 10 years

Part of the #1 agency network in the world: WPP