Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

easyJet stops invitations to its semi-secret ‘Flight Club’ – and what happened to its loyalty scheme?

Links on Head for Points may support the site by paying a commission.  See here for all partner links.

easyJet has a semi-secret loyalty programme called ‘Flight Club’.

I say ‘semi-secret’ because, whilst most easyJet travellers won’t know that it exists, and it is not openly advertised, it is discussed on the airline website.

In theory, membership of Flight Club is ‘invitation only’. However, easyJet has published the criteria for receiving an invitation:

easyJet flight club
  • Booked and flown on 20 flights or more in the past 12 months, or
  • Booked and flown on 10 flights or more, and spent £1,500 or other currency equivalent in the past 12 months, or
  • Booked and flown on an average 10 flights or more for 10 years, with at least one flight every year

What does easyJet Flight Club get you?

You won’t be getting into any airport lounges with your Flight Club membership, or taking any free flights.

However, the benefits are genuinely useful, even if the savings will be going to your employer, assuming you travel on business, rather than yourself.

(If Flight Club has a weakness, this is it. At their heart, frequent flyer and hotel loyalty schemes are seen by travellers as given them an under-the-counter kickback for all the missed weekends, birthdays and anniversaries they endure. Flight Club doesn’t give you anything unless you pay for your own travel.)

Here are the Flight Club membership benefits, as per the easyJet website:

  • Fee-free changes – Make unlimited changes to the dates and travel routes of your bookings without paying admin fees. Just pay the difference between the original fare and that of your new flight.
  • Free name changes – Make up to 5 passenger name changes per year, completely free.
  • Price Guarantee – If you find an equivalent flight of another airline cheaper within 48 hours of making your booking, we’ll refund the difference. We’ll also give you a voucher worth 10% of that difference for your next flight. Just let our dedicated Flight Team know within that time.
  • Our price promise – We promise you’ll always get the best fares for your easyJet flights. If, on a rare occasion, you find a flight you have already booked on easyJet.com for less, we’ll give you a voucher worth the price difference for your next flight.
  • Preview of schedule seat releases and sales – We think the people who fly with us most often should be the first to know what we’re doing and what’s coming up, so we’ll give you advanced notification of schedule seat releases and sales to keep you in the know.

You can use your Flight Club benefits when travelling with family and friends, as long as you are all on the same booking.

But easyJet is not currently sending out new invitations ….

I have heard from two readers recently who met the Flight Club invitation criteria but hadn’t received anything.

After speaking to easyJet, it turns out that no new invitations are being issued. It isn’t clear if existing memberships are being renewed.

This could be good news or bad news. easyJet is either gearing up to finally launch a formal loyalty programme or – on the downside – it could have decided to ditch Flight Club alongside its ditched loyalty scheme.

What happened to the promised easyJet loyalty scheme?

Back in 2018, easyJet had serious plans to launch a loyalty scheme. It hired a ‘Head of Loyalty’ from Etihad, who has since departed for a life outside travel at Avast.

It even put out the following slide in its financial results presentation:

easyJet new loyalty programme

This wasn’t a slide put up as a throw-away at a conference. It was announced in a formal presentation to easyJet shareholders to persuade them that the airline remained a good investment. The airline said:

  • easyJet would introduce a points currency
  • points would be earned on all purchases
  • points would also be earned with selected partners including easyJet Holidays
  • there would be a ‘range’ of redemption options, which implied that this was NOT a straight cashback programme like Norwegian Reward
  • ‘Points & Cash’ would be available, presumably allowing people with only a handful of points to still use them by getting a discount on a future easyJet flight

We were told that it would launch in the UK in 2019 with European expansion in 2020. 

We were also promised, in 2020, the launch of a Business Rewards loyalty scheme for corporates. This was meant to follow the 2019 launch of Corporate Flight Club for businesses which make a substantial number of easyJet bookings.

None of this happened.

easyJet continues to wobble

It is now almost a year since easyJet rejected a bid from Wizz Air without even putting it to a vote.

The airline forced shareholders to hand over substantial sums during the pandemic to keep it afloat, but it is still seen as caught in a pincer movement – pricier than Ryanair and Wizz Air, and lacking the access to core airports, alliance traffic and status and loyalty benefits to fight off IAG, Lufthansa Group and Air France KLM.

A loyalty strategy was meant to help close the gap with British Airways – not through Flight Club, which does little for the traveller themselves, but via a points based scheme. If the apparent winding up of Flight Club means that a proper loyalty scheme is back on the table, it is good news.

Category

General

Comments (46)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • r* says:
    8 Aug8 August 14:05

    Easyjet are still a tier above ryanair a couple of tiers above wizz, but coincidence or not, they started to go downhill after they got that ex-ryanair exec. The first sign was pulling the old ‘under seat bag only’ crap, having a normal carryon was one of the things that made easyjets higher prices ok – now the main reason to take easyjet over ryanair (and also wizz) is that they dont yet do the disgusting practice of intentionally splitting up passengers on the same booking.

    Ryanair ofcourse are maionly for a cheap flight and at least they dont charge lol prices to pick a seat, unlike wizz, who are just the lowest tier of the uk operating airlines. The crew and the planes seem fine, which are the main things I guess, but everything else.. I was gonna book a flight with them a cpl of weeks ago where the flight was like 50pp. Then it was 55pp to pick a seat, for a 2 hour flight? gtfo. I dont even bother looking at them for flights anymore.

    Sure, you dont have to sit next to the ppl youre travelling with, but for me it comes under the category of ‘dont be a dick’, and when they charge more to pick a seat than for the flight, thats very much being a dick 🙂

    • Callum says:
      8 Aug8 August 18:48

      Sounds like user error to me… A seat on Wizz does not cost £55 – including the extra leg room row 1 seats. Not even their seat + checked bag + extra cabin bag package normally (ever?) costs that much!

      • r* says:
        8 Aug8 August 23:51

        It does when its a return trip. Currently ltn-otp for example is 50 for the ticket and 44 for the cheapest seat, maginally less but still nonsense.

  • Gothbe says:
    8 Aug8 August 18:56

    I’ve had flightclub membership for many years. The benefits have reduced in value but I still find it very useful. The ability to change flight dates and times is definitely the most useful and I have used it many times. Price promise used to be a serious benefit. In the past if you booked a return flight, they would check the price of each leg separately and if it reduced they would give you a voucher for the difference. Now they look at the price of the return trip and only refund if the whole trip has reduced. As a result if I’m booking expensive flights, or flights for several people I booked the outward and return separately so that I can get the price match on both legs. On a couple of occasions I have booked a golf trip for 12 people and easyJet has issued price promise vouchers on both legs which reduced the cost by over £500 for the group!!

    Easyjet + also has its issues since covid. One of the benefits is that if you arrive at the airport early and there is space on an earlier flight, to the same location, then they will change your ticket for free at the airport. I passed through Glasgow a few days ago and there were two earlier flights that I could catch. The problem is that post covid they don’t have desks in many of the airports so there is no one local to change it. Some of the non easyJet ground staff can do it but most are new and don’t know how to. I had to ring the easyJet plus number and ask them to do it but it was very slow which meant that I was too late for one of the earlier flights.

    • Niall says:
      8 Aug8 August 20:14

      I notice the EasyJet plus benefit of an earlier flight on the same day is for a return flight:

      ‘Get an earlier return flight home on the same day at no extra cost
      Transfer onto an earlier flight departing on the same day as your original return flight for free.‘

      Which cuts the use to <50% of flights and means there could be a disadvantage to booking a return flight as two one way flights.

      • Lady London says:
        9 Aug9 August 00:28

        It’s pretty hard to tell what is a return flight on the multiflight bookings you get with Easyjet. I wasn’t even aware of the rule about it having to be a return until ticket desks tried, took ages and failed to work out if it was.. If you fly a lot with Easyjet you can manage this but when they started on that little rule it did leave a bad taste in the mouth.

  • Tim says:
    8 Aug8 August 19:22

    Worryingly for easyJet, their onflight customer service is now worse than Ryanair in my opinion. I travel with a disabled child and often have to change seats as he gets distressed. Three times I have been told I will have to sort it out with other passengers and each time it has been the cabin manager refusing to help. Ryanair have been very happy to help.

    • TimM says:
      9 Aug9 August 08:09

      My suspicion is that cabin crew from my least favourite airline ever, Thomas Cook, have been taken on by easyJet and insufficiently re-trained. Certainly the onboard experience is nothing like easyJet of old and more like Thomas Cook’s.

  • Steve says:
    15 Aug15 August 17:05

    Interesting to note that the no weight limit for ‘Large’ cabin bags appears to have been removed and replaced with a 15kg limit. I notice that this was not highlighted or shown in their adverts!

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

New to Head for Points?

Welcome!  We’re the UK’s most-read source of business travel, Avios, frequent flyer and hotel loyalty news. Let us improve how you travel. Got any questions? Ask them in our forums.

Latest Forum Posts

Get 40,000 bonus points (worth 40,000 Avios) and £300 dining credit with The Platinum Card

Check reward flight availability instantly for free!

See a whole year of reward seat availability on one page at SeatSpy.com

Get £10 when you spend £150 on your free Currensea card

Booking a luxury hotel?

Our luxury hotel booking service offers you GUARANTEED extra benefits over booking direct. Works with Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental, The Ritz Carlton, St Regis and more. We've booked £1.7 million of rooms to date. Click for details.

SME? SPECIAL OFFER TO 12TH MAY EARN POINTS WORTH 30,000 AVIOS WITH CAPITAL ON TAP

Get 20,000 bonus points, four airport lounge passes and your first year free with American Express Gold

The UK's biggest frequent flyer website uses cookies, which you can block via your browser settings. Continuing implies your consent to this policy. Our privacy policy is here.

Got it!