Global Loyalty Programme

Leading the design of Sixt's rewards launch, from one market to twelve in six months

A discount scheme gave customers a reason to book once. Points and status tiers had to give them a reason to come back, and the harder part was making all of it easy to understand.

Role: Design Lead, in a team of four designers

Focus: Programme strategy, landing experience and cross-channel design

Scope: Web, app, CRM and branch, across twelve markets

Challenge: Moving customers from a simple discount to a two-currency, four-tier programme without losing them on the way.

Outcome: Over 700,000 members in six months, 111% of the Q1 enrolment goal and twelve markets live.

Four programme cards: earn points, redeem points, get status, and skip the counter

From a Discount to a Currency

Sixt already had a loyalty scheme, and it was simple: members got up to 20% off their rentals. It was easy to understand, but it did not give anyone a reason to come back beyond the next discount.

The new programme changed the model. Every rental earns two kinds of points. Status points move you up through the tiers, and rental points turn into free rental days. On top of that come member rates, faster pickup, upgrades, and status matching with more than 40 airline and 15 hotel programmes.

It is a much stronger offer, and also much harder to explain. So we were not only launching something new. We had to move customers from something they already understood to something they had to learn.

How might we make a two-currency, four-tier rewards programme clear enough that people decide to join and know how to use it?

The Rules We Designed Inside

Three sets of constraints shaped every decision, and none of them were negotiable.

One programme, many markets

  • Same structure in every country
  • Consent and tax rules change locally
  • Launch sequenced market by market

Rules that protect the business

  • Only base rate and protection earn
  • Rental points expire after 24 months
  • Status resets every year

The platform we had

  • A CMS with fixed building blocks
  • A third-party loyalty platform
  • Counter systems in every branch

Two Markets, Two Different Problems

We planned the rollout in waves: the US first, DACH a few months later, then the rest of Europe. The analytics showed that each wave needed its own answer.

In the US, awareness was low and people were not reaching the programme at all, so visibility was the lever. In Germany the brand was well known and people did reach the page, but they did not join. There, the work was on-page conversion and email.

To solve the two-currency problem, I looked beyond car rental. Next to our direct competitors, we studied a national rail loyalty scheme and an online travel agency's tiered membership. Both offer two ways to redeem, and both explain it well.

Insight

Two currencies, two stories

What you earn and what you get are separate ideas

The benchmarks that work never explain both at once. They give earning its own moment, then redeeming its own moment, so a reader only holds one idea at a time.

What Members Told Us

We tested the programme with 25 members and non-members on mobile. The clearest signal was about value. People want to know what the programme is worth to them in money.

"It doesn't say how much I could save. That is the one thing missing throughout this whole process."

That is now shaping the roadmap: showing savings and earnings in money, right at the moment of booking.

Solutions

1. Three Directions, One Tone

I defined three landing page directions, built against a content spec I agreed with the Loyalty Product Manager. Each one was a working preview, so stakeholders reviewed real pages instead of static frames.

We also explored a gamified direction with a motorsport theme. It had energy, but it made the rules harder to read, and clarity was the whole point.

The decision: an informational, guiding tone on a straightforward page.

The programme page we launched. Open it to scroll through the whole page.

Solutions

2. Two Currencies, One Clear Story

Status points and rental points are earned on the same rental, but they do different jobs. The page keeps them apart: one path for climbing the tiers, and one for turning points into free days.

Each part of the page answers a single question:

  • What do I earn on a rental?
  • What does it unlock?
  • What can I get with it?
Earning and redeeming, explained as two separate paths.

Solutions

3. Showing Points Where Decisions Happen

A landing page alone does not build a habit, so we brought the programme to the moments where people book: the homepage, the booking widget, the results list, the app home and the account menu.

UI decision: we chose the callout under each car in the results list through a four-way test.

What shipped: for checkout we mapped every state a customer can be in, from earning and redeeming to business accounts and ineligible bookings, so everyone sees a message that fits their situation.

Points on every car in the results, and a clear choice to redeem or earn at checkout.

One Map for Every Touchpoint

A loyalty programme does not live on one page. It lives at the counter, in emails, in the app and on the screens in the branch. Each team owned a piece of it, and nobody had the full picture.

I built a cross-channel journey map, from the first time someone hears about the programme to after they return the car. For each touchpoint it rates the current state, sets a priority and names the team that owns it. It became the shared roadmap for booking, post-booking, CRM and branch.

Two things came out of it:

  • The best moment was empty. The app screen shown after a customer returns the car converts non-members at two to three times the rate of cold outreach, and it had no programme content at all. It became a top priority.
  • Knowing where not to show up. We kept the programme out of damage and pre-invoice messages. Nobody wants a points offer next to a damage report.
Loyalty programme: cross-channel journey map Eight stages from hearing about the programme to returning the car. For each stage: its touchpoints, whether the programme is shown there, its priority and the owning team. The last stage, after returning the car, is marked as the top opportunity because the app post-return screen and the invoice email carried no programme content. STAGE TOUCHPOINTS VISIBILITY PRIORITY OWNER 01 Hear about it In-branch screens + QR Paid media, SEA, SEO Press and trade coverage Partly shown Medium Marketing 02 Understand it Programme landing page Homepage hero banner Nudge under booking widget Shown High Design + Web 03 Join Web and app enrolment Account creation, login Counter sign-up Shown High Product 04 Book Callout under each car Points at checkout Member rates Shown High Booking 05 Before pickup Confirmation email App home tile Reminders Partly shown Medium CRM 06 At the branch Counter system: tier + balance Agent script and training A4 counter display Shown Medium Branch ops 07 During the rental Pre-invoice message Damage communication Not shown Deliberately out Design 08 After returning App post-return screen Invoice email Points credited Not shown Top priority Product + CRM Top opportunity: 2 to 3x conversion vs cold outreach
The cross-channel journey map, with priorities and owners for every touchpoint.

Twelve Markets in Six Months

The US went live in November 2025, DACH in February 2026, and France, Italy, Spain, the UK, Benelux and Monaco followed in March. The launch did not stop at screens: counter staff had a script, tablets and a view of each member's tier and balance, and the counter display we designed for DACH was rolled out to every market.

Growth

  • 700K+ members in six months
  • 111% of the Q1 goal, a week early
  • +10% members week over week

Engagement

  • 59% of top-tier members rented within 180 days
  • 45% of qualifying rentals came after enrolment
  • 26% redemption in the top tier

Channel

  • App first for the top three tiers
  • +42% Android downloads in the US
  • Live on web, app and in branch

Leading the Design Team

I led a team of four designers inside a much larger launch: a dedicated programme team, a launch group of sixteen people across product, engineering, marketing and legal, and an external platform team. My job was to keep the design work clear, consistent and connected to the business.

Specs before pixels

  • Content specs agreed with Product
  • Dated review checkpoints
  • Design sign-off before escalation

Design beyond screens

  • Commercial questions raised early
  • Benchmarks from outside the category
  • The journey map as a shared roadmap

Quality at scale

  • End-to-end tests on web and app
  • Bug bashes before every release
  • Native-speaker review in six languages

Challenge & Learnings

The hardest part of a loyalty programme is not writing the rules. It is making them feel simple.

"Launching brings people in. Clarity makes them stay."

Leading this project taught me to design the whole journey before the first page. A programme like this only works when the counter, the email, the app and the website all tell the same story, and that alignment is design work long before it is a screen.

You made it to the end

If you would like to talk about this project, or just say hi, my inbox is open.

sborges.rafa@gmail.com Back to home