“We’ve worked with partners before on a one-to-one basis, but never with a coalition of partners of this scope at once,” says François-Yves Caya, manager of loyalty marketing and customer relationship, VIA Rail, who put the total value of the promotion in excess of $300,000. “We want to draw awareness of our VIA Préférence program and increase trial of VIA services, particularly in the Québec City-Windsor corridor. We also want to draw attention to our eBoutique, launched last December.”

VIA Préférence, currently with close to 410,000 members, offers various advantages, including free train travel on the VIA network and on the SNCF network in France for members who accumulate enough points. And with reward travel starting at only 550 points, getting to that free train trip isn't difficult. Caya is hoping that this online promotion, developed in association with Montreal-based Plan B Digital, will generate at least 2,500 new train travel trials.

Ordinarily, VIA Préférence customers earn one point for every dollar spent on train travel with VIA and also earn one point for every dollar spent while shopping at the online eBoutique. With this new promotion, VIA Préférence members can earn double the points with over 100 online retailers at the eBoutique and double double the points with four featured partners: Sears.ca, Chapters.Indigo.ca, SonyStyle.ca, and StarwoodHotels.com.

Each of these partners is offering special promotions through the eBoutique over-and-above any other deals they may have underway: $10 off every $100 spent at Sears.ca; 5% off all purchases at Chapters.Indigo.ca; special deals on several products at SonyStyle.ca; and a second night at half-price at any participating StarwoodHotels.com. As for VIA, special incentives will be offered on partner sites in order to generate more interest in train travel, trial or repeat business.

Launched Oct. 1/09, this promotion will run until year-end.

VIA is communicating the promotion on its Web site at www.viarail.ca; the VIA Préférence Web site at www.viapreference.com; as well as through VIA Destinations, its own on-board magazine; through posters, tent cards, danglers and brochures in train stations; and intranet communications to staff.

Each of the four featured partners is also publicizing the promotion with various combinations of Web banners, links to a partner promo microsite, newsletters, presence on Facebook and/or Twitter, emails and public relations efforts.

“Train travel isn’t always top of mind,” says Caya. “People often opt for the car. We expect, with the help of our featured partners, that this promotion will build additional awareness for the VIA Préférence program and our eBoutique, and, especially, generate trial of VIA services. We expect that people will be pleasantly surprised – after all, we are the ‘More Human Way to Travel!’.”

Plan B Digital is a service provider of multilingual, multi-currency, digital loyalty solutions in Europe and North America. For clients including VIA Préférence, PayPal UK, Shell UK, Sparkassen MasterCard Germany and Hilton HHonors Credit Card Germany, Plan B Digital connects members and retailers in real time for shopping, and rewards members for purchases with multiple points or cash back. Plan B Digital's solutions are provided on a private label, turnkey basis.