Client
Alaska Airlines
Platforms
Email
Focus
Credit card applications
Impact
1,124+ applications with a 71% approval rate
THE CHALLENGE
When Alaska Airlines was switching a credit card sign-up offer to a lower, less-valuable bonus miles offer, we had no way to convey this to our email audience. Because of our bank and legal compliance obligations, we were not allowed to “preview” upcoming offers or share end dates.
Bank of America and Alaska also wanted to boost the volume of new applications before an offer swap. Lower bonus miles offers received fewer applications overall, and tended to have a lower approval rating.
THE STRATEGY
During a strategy session with Bank of America, I came up with a third monthly email called the “Last Chance email.”
For our initial A/B test, “Last Chance” emails were sent to a user segment who had clicked on prior sign-up emails, but did not apply through Bank of America. They were considered our higher-engaged customers of the Mileage Plan program.
We changed the subject line and added a short text banner at the top to encourage applicants to apply ASAP.
THE IMPACT
“Last Chance” emails became the highest-converting credit card emails Alaska had ever deployed.
For example, a “Last Chance + 70,000 bonus miles” email in 2024 had 1,000+ applications with a 70%+ approval rate.
Regular emails deployed to Mileage Plan customers saw around 50% fewer applications per email, with an approval rate of 50-60%.
