Steal These Ideas!: Marketing Secrets That Will Make You a Star, 2nd Edition

Pan American WorldPass and How Last Became First

By the time the late 1970s rolled around, the experience of flying had been downgraded from glamorous and elite to mundane, overcrowded, and as torturous as a never-ending bus trip. Yet flights were full of corporate executives and middle managers winging their way across the country and around the world on a regular basis. Working hard, making money, getting ahead, these were not happy travelers.

Although the airlines reveled in their popularity, they were also aware of the growing dissatisfaction of their large bloc of business travelers. In a classic marketing moment, several major airlines decided that their best customers deserved to be singled out and rewarded for frequent travel. Thus, the ...