Flying Blue has a new leader, and it happens to be a personal friend of mine!
Tiffany Funk Named New Head Of Flying Blue
Tiffany Funk has been named the new Head of Flying Blue, the loyalty program of Air France, KLM, and Transavia.
Tiffany is well-known in the miles and points world. She worked for years with my friend Ben Schlappig at One Mile at a Time, helped run the award consulting service PointsPros, and later served as Co-Founder and President of point.me, the impressive award-search platform that greatly simplified the search for award space.
Tiffany has spent years on the consumer side of loyalty: searching for awards, understanding where programs are generous, where they are maddening, and where the online experience breaks down. To me, it’s a match made in heaven precisely because she will approach her role with a fresh perspective that often eludes those who have worked within the industry for most of their careers.
That does not mean Flying Blue will suddenly shower members with unlimited (or even more) transatlantic saver business class awards…let’s not be naive. Loyalty programs are businesses, and Air France-KLM is not hiring Tiffany to give away the store. But it does mean Flying Blue will now be led by someone who understands how these programs are actually used by engaged members.
The move also comes as Ben Lipsey’s role expands. Lipsey, who previously led Flying Blue, will now serve as Senior Vice President of Loyalty, Digital, & Data. That shift is also very important and a sign of wisdom by Ben Smith, the CEO of Air France-KLM in finding impeccable talent.
Loyalty programs increasingly sit at the intersection of airline revenue, co-brand credit cards, personalization, digital product, and customer data. Putting loyalty, digital, and data under one umbrella suggests Air France-KLM sees Flying Blue as potential that is still untapped. Lipsey is a passionate man who loves the industry and I’m glad to see him rise at Air France-KLM.
The best airline programs are not just rebate schemes. They shape consumer behavior and influence which airline a customer books, which credit card a customer uses, and alliance loyalty.
Flying Blue has already become a leading program in recent years. It has dynamic pricing, but also regular Promo Rewards and a superb collection of airline partners. It has annoying surcharges, but also very useful award access that is more generous than its European competitors. It has become increasingly relevant for U.S.-based travelers because Air France-KLM has a broad transatlantic network and Flying Blue partners with all the major transferable points currencies.
I am optimistic that Tiffany’s new role and Lipsey’s pivot could bring positive benefits for members. Or, as always with loyalty programs, it could mean more sophisticated ways to extract revenue from them. Probably both…and that would be acceptable.
On A Personal Note
I’ve known Tiffany for 15 years and consider her not only a friend, but an inspiration. I think back to the period 10-15 years ago when she, Ben (Schlappig), and I would enjoy meals together, which was quite frequent during our Frequent Traveler University days and when all three of us were in California. I remember when Ben hired her in 2011: it was immediately clear he struck gold.
She’s an enviable businesswoman, smart, feisty (in the best possible way), and yet recognizes the dignity in each person and is able to bring out the best in her team through unparalleled organization, articulate expression, and a worldview that gets many priorities right. No shade toward Ben, who is another inspiration, but Tiffany made his meteoric rise possible by being the one in the background who promoted him and by managing the more banal parts the business to allow him to do what he loved: travel and write.
There was one particular evening that my wife Heidi and I spent her in Tiffany’s living room with her husband Nick that Heidi still does not let me forget today. After eating homemade tacos, we were playing a board game (The Settlers of Catan if I recall correctly) and it was guys versus girls. When I play a board game I play to win…and I was merciless in trying to beat Heidi. Apparently I should have been a smarter newlywed! Even so, it was such a pleasant evening filled with laugher and great conversation. I greatly miss those days of our youth!
Watching Tiffany’s career flourish makes me smile: she’s exactly the right person for her latest role and a woman of integrity.
CONCLUSION
Tiffany Funk has been named Head of Flying Blue, while Ben Lipsey moves into a broader SVP Loyalty, Digital & Data role at Air France-KLM.
I find this appointment fascinating but very shrewd because Funk comes from the consumer-facing side of the loyalty world rather than the usual airline executive pipeline. That does not mean Flying Blue will suddenly become wildly generous, but it does mean the program will be led by someone who understands how members actually search, redeem, and engage.
All the best, Tiffany!
image: point.me
Sounds like a great person and hire for Flying Blue but your description of the night playing board games in the living room reminds me of a current Snickers commercial.
This is so cool! I remember when she started writing for Ben for awhile. We got one of our own on the inside!
Very nice endorsement!
I think it is likely to be good for all parties for this person to have an understanding of all sides of collecting and using points. Incidentally, I was thinking the other day about what ever happened to using points to upgrade from economy or premium economy to business class for international flights. Years ago, I used to use transferable points to upgrade all the time on both UA and AF, but UA made it harder to find upgrade space at booking and less likely you will get off the waitlist except on a few routes, and AF made it harder to find upgradeable space before booking. (I think you can still do it using Expertflyer searching individual flights, but I have not done that in a while.). At this point, only BA in my experience releases much. I’ve wondered if an airline could make money with higher “skip the waitlist” mileage expenditure required, like UA talked about, but only occasionally does. Back when my employer only paid for economy, using my miles to upgrade was my favorite use for them. But now, it seems all you hear about is using miles for awards, not upgrades.
I wish her well. I’m hoping she can enact some unfulfilled promises like the substantially increased business saver availability we were supposed to get in exchange for the 20% price hike for business class saver awards.
I’ve also encountered some people who think that this will be another Richard Kerr situation where the new hire’s expertise is used to actively make things worse for engaged members. Tiffany is certainly smart enough to be that person but I’m cautiously optimistic that she’ll make program improvements for members rather than damage the program further.
Tiff is no Kerr.
The ‘20% hike’ only applied to three countries, most everything else went up by a cool 70% and it’s now 25k miles more to fly the 7 hours to DSS than the 12 to LAX/MEX. It was by far the worst no-notice devaluation I’ve ever seen in the 20+ years I have been dealing with frequent flyer programmes.
More power and best of good luck to the highly talented and solution-oriented Tiffany Funk!
I hope she gets rid of their outrageous change fees for award redemptions!
Outrageous? They’re only charging €70 which on is loose change compared to their fuel surcharges on long haul. I think that’s fine, there’s no benefit in encouraging people to make multiple speculative bookings and mess availability up.
Huge fan of Funk! James Brown.. Stevie Wonder.. Kool & the Gang.. Earth, Wind, & Fire… and Tiffany.
And, epic Settlers of Catan reference! I have even more respect for all of you.