Skift Take
Frequent Airbnb customers have been waiting for some kind of program to reward them for their loyalty. They'll have to be patient.
Earlier this year, Airbnb made an announcement that looked to give its frequent users one of their top requests: Superguest, a loyalty program, was coming soon.
Several months later, the homesharing platform has a new message: Keep waiting.
At Skift Global Forum in New York City Thursday, Airbnb President of Homes Greg Greeley said the company had conducted research and put together a pilot, but that's about it so far.
"We decided that it wasn't differentiated enough, we didn't have enough community involvement for us to launch it," he said. "So we're actually back to the drawing board. We have nothing else to share on that, but I can tell you the team is waking up every day thinking about how we can have a great Superguest program for those loyal guests that are asking for it."
It's a question Greeley, who joined Airbnb from Amazon six months ago, said he's been hearing a lot.
"The Airbnb community is very loyal and guests are super excited about having a Superguest or some form of loyalty program."
The 10-year-old company hasn't fully detailed what such a program would entail, though CEO Brian Chesky said it would offer "benefits across the entire travel journey," including homes, transportation, experiences, and other services when he first announced it in February.
At the time, the program was expected to roll out in late summer.
The subject also came up at last year's Forum in September, when Airbnb co-founder Nathan Blecharczyk said it was surprising that the company still didn't have a loyalty program.
“At the very least, I’d love to do more to recognize our loyal travelers," he said in 2017. "I think they deserve some special recognition. We don’t have it. I think we should.”
Read Full Edited Interview Transcript Below
Skift: Our next speaker might be relatively new to his role as the head of Homes for Airbnb, but he's definitely not new to the worlds of eCommerce and loyalty. Prior to joining Airbnb in March, Greg spent 18 years at Amazon, where he was most recently leading Amazon's global Prime program, which he also happened to help invent and launch, back in 2005. It's been about six or seven months on the new job. What's the transition been like from going from Amazon to Airbnb?
Greg Greeley: It's actually been a blast and I am just totally excited to have joined such an energetic company. There's just so much enthusiasm for what the community that's been built and the way that the company wakes up eve
