Session details coming soon

Attendees can check-in/register for Loyalty Expo! Find us at the registration desk to grab your name badge and attendee swag bag. 

Breakfast in the Exhibit Hall

These sessions are not open to all attendees/are only open to brands with full conference passes and Masterclass sponsors. For any questions, please contact carlystemmer@loyalty360.org. 
 
Every brand is feeling the pressure: rising acquisition costs, members who chase the next best offer, and a flood of AI tools that promise personalization but risk making your program feel less human. Meanwhile, your most loyal customers are telling you exactly what they need. Are you listening?

In this interactive masterclass, we will share Phaedon’s latest research, best practices, and consumer insights for building emotional loyalty that drives retention, grows share of wallet, and turns members into advocates for your brand even when competitors make it easy to leave.

Through structured peer discussions, you'll hear how others are navigating the same challenges and leave with the kind of unfiltered, industry-specific insights that only come from being in the room. Backed by our recent consumer research across five industries, you'll learn how to identify where your loyalty efforts are falling short on emotional connection, close the gaps that matter most to your customers, and measure loyalty in a way that reflects how people actually feel, not just how they transact.

You'll leave with a clear picture of emotional loyalty opportunities and a set of actionable strategies to humanize loyalty in an AI-driven world.

Key Takeaways:

• Complete a self-assessment of where your brand stands on emotional loyalty today.
• Understand the six emotional loyalty drivers and how they map to your industry's specific performance gaps.
• Learn how to distinguish between table stakes, nice-to-haves, and true brand differentiators in your loyalty program.
• Receive practical guidance that goes beyond transactional metrics to capture how customers actually feel.
• Explore how AI can amplify, rather than replace, human connection in loyalty strategy.

As customer loyalty becomes more data-driven, technology-enabled, and deeply embedded across the organization, many teams are discovering a growing skills gap. The challenge isn’t just hiring for marketing or technology expertise, it’s finding talent that can bridge both worlds while also understanding customer strategy, value exchange, and long-term relationship building.

In this session, leaders from both brand and supplier organizations will explore how they are identifying, hiring, developing, and retaining specialized loyalty talent in an increasingly competitive market. The discussion will focus on the skills and mindsets that matter most today, how teams are structuring roles to support collaboration across functions and partners, and what organizations are doing to reduce turnover and knowledge loss in long-term loyalty initiatives.

Key discussion topics include:

• The evolving skill sets required for modern customer loyalty roles
• Balancing strategic, technical, and analytical capabilities within loyalty teams
• Developing and retaining talent in long-running, constantly evolving programs

We believe that creating engaging experiences to drive lasting customer loyalty is one of the best marketing strategies that brands can currently employ. However, creating loyalty still presents a major challenge for many brands. They haven’t quite figured out how to leverage and execute the “right” technologies and processes in a meaningful and measurable manner.

As more brands work to achieve the same status as the "best-in-class" brands out there today, we are happy to share insights and trends into our view of the direction of customer experience and loyalty. 
 
We believe that creating engaging experiences to drive lasting customer loyalty is one of the best marketing strategies that brands can currently employ. However, creating loyalty still presents a major challenge for many brands. They haven’t quite figured out how to leverage and execute the “right” technologies and processes in a meaningful and measurable manner.

As more brands work to achieve the same status as the "best-in-class" brands out there today, we are happy to share insights and trends into our view of the direction of customer experience and loyalty. 
 
Panelists will discuss: 
 

• How a loyalty program or strategy can position your brand to become “best-in-class”
• What loyalty trends and technologies panelists are seeing most across their clients and industries
• How client needs and loyalty program expectations have shifted over the last 12–18 months
• What brands are requesting more of from partners, platforms, and agencies in today’s loyalty environment
• Emerging innovations, concepts, or capabilities that could represent the “next big thing” in customer loyalty
• Going beyond points and expanding on individualized experiences and personalization based on data
• Top priorities for marketing executives and how they can best equip their teams to meet their goals
• Adjusting loyalty strategies to meet economic pressures and increasing price sensitivity

Grab a cup of a coffee, soda, and a snack - be sure to check out this year's exhibitors in the exhibit hall! Don't forget to get your QR code scanned as part of this year's Passport to Prizes contest. Brand attendees - you can find your QR code within the conference mobile app.

Session description coming soon

Loyalty is no longer a closed system - it now operates at the intersection of brands, consumers, financial infrastructure and technology platforms. This session examines how digital gift cards have evolved into a powerful connective layer, supported by open banking and strategic partnerships that eliminate friction and unlock entirely new reward use cases.

Alex Preece from Tillo will explore innovations such as converting airline miles into local e-cards, rewarding everyday behaviors like rent payments, enabling seamless cross-platform redemption. Attendees can learn how ecosystem collaboration is redefining what’s possible in loyalty - and how to future-proof their programs through smarter integrations.

Key Takeaways: 
 

• Modern loyalty programs operate across multiple systems and partners: Loyalty is increasingly shaped by how well brands connect rewards, payments, and third-party platforms - rather than by standalone points or currencies.

 

• Digital gift cards enable faster, more flexible reward design: Digital gift cards support real-time issuance, localized relevance and broad redemption options, making them a practical tool for expanding loyalty use cases without adding operational complexity.

 

• Open banking creates access to new earning triggers tied to everyday activity: Payment and account data can be used to reward behaviors such as rent, subscriptions or bill payments - unlocking higher-frequency engagement beyond traditional purchase events.

 

• Interoperability unlocks value from existing loyalty currencies: Airline miles, points and other rewards gain greater utility when they can be exchanged or redeemed across platforms, categories and geographies.

 

• Scalable loyalty innovation depends on integration-ready infrastructure: Programs that rely on APIs, modular platforms and ecosystem partnerships are better positioned to test new reward mechanics, onboard partners quickly and adapt to changing member expectations.

Session details coming soon

During lunch, Loyalty Expo sponsors will host lunch table discussions on various informative topics suggested by Loyalty360 members. Lunch in the exhibit hall is open to all attendees, but we request that seats at sponsored table discussions are reserved for brand/marketer attendees only. 

Topics may include: 
​

• Emotional Loyalty
• Customer Loyalty Metrics & KPIs
• Premium and Subscription Loyalty
• Personalization Best Practices
• Detecting and Preventing Loyalty Fraud
• Incorporating Gamification into Your Loyalty Strategy
• How to Collect Zero- and First-Party Data with Loyalty Programs
• Building a Customer Loyalty Team
• Launching/Relaunching Your Loyalty Strategy
• Emerging Technologies
• Employee Engagement
• Building Successful Brand-to-Brand Partnerships
• Gaining and Sustaining Internal Alignment and Buy-In
• Next-Generation Customer Loyalty - What's Next?
• Loyalty Program Strategies in Times of Crisis
• Managing a Multi-Country Loyalty Program
• Encouraging Members to Redeem Points: Easing Point Liability

Session details coming soon

During this Loyalty Expo panel session,  we will explore the rising significance of brand-to-brand partnerships in customer loyalty strategies and programs. Discover best practices, success stories, and effective marketing strategies for leveraging partnerships to enhance customer engagement and differentiation. 
 

Key discission topics will include: 

• The growing emphasis on partnerships within loyalty programs and their impact on customer engagement.
• Insights from successful partnerships and learn practical strategies for cultivating impactful collaborations.
• How to integrate partnerships to enhance the overall customer experience.
• Innovative approaches to promoting and marketing brand partnerships for maximum visibility and impact.
• Common partnership challenges and explore strategies for capitalizing on opportunities.
• Tactics for establishing new partnerships and expanding your network for mutual benefit.
• Importance of aligning expectations among partnering brands to drive sustainable value.

How do you build a loyalty program within a subscription-based business? Traditional loyalty programs are highly transactional, rewarding frequency and choice—but in subscription businesses like telecom, customers are already committed to multi-year contracts. This is the loyalty paradox we solved at TELUS by transforming TELUS Rewards from a tactical retention tool into a strategic platform that drives growth, powers partnerships, unlocks customer insights, and fundamentally changes how we connect with our customers.

This session is designed for marketing and customer experience leaders in subscription-based businesses—including SaaS, telecom, utilities, and media/streaming—as well as loyalty program managers seeking to evolve beyond traditional models, partnership teams aspiring to build and foster loyalty ecosystems, data and analytics teams looking to activate customer intelligence, and anyone navigating customer engagement and retention in contractual relationships. Attendees will gain a comprehensive framework for building loyalty when commitment already exists, along with partnership strategies that expand value without proportional cost increases.

Session details coming soon

Session details coming soon

Launching a new loyalty program requires more than compelling benefits. It demands an operating model designed to scale confidently across the enterprise from day one. 

In this session, Victoria Dravneek, Head of Loyalty Strategy and Platforms at PNC, will share how PNC designed and launched PNC TotalRewards, the brand’s loyalty strategy built to deepen customer relationships and increase lifetime value by rewarding a client’s complete relationship with PNC.  

Attendees will gain a behind-the-scenes look at how PNC approached program creation with enterprise execution in mind, aligning leadership, standardizing language, and prioritizing early employee training and enablement to support consistent execution across the organization. The session will also explore how rollout planning, analytics, and performance measurement were structured to support confident execution and continuous optimization post-launch. 

Key discussion topics include: 

• Designing and launching a customer loyalty strategy with scale and longevity in mind 
• How PNC TotalRewards was built to reward total relationship value rather than individual products 
• Structuring rollout, analytics, and measurement to support enterprise execution 
• What it takes to operationalize loyalty programs that are built to last 
• Why employee engagement and readiness are essential to successful loyalty execution 

The Loyalty Expo 2026 Cocktail Reception on May 21st is open to all conference attendees. Join us for a drink and walk through the expo hall to meet this year's exhibitors!

The Loyalty360 Best in Class Awards recognize the top tier of Loyalty360 members across multiple categories, granting the distinction to the industry’s leading brands, agencies, marketers, programs, and technologies.

The Loyalty360 Best in Class Awards are separate from the Loyalty360 Awards. This event is invite-only, for Loyalty360 corporate members.

**Loyalty360 members will receive communications with additional details. If you have any questions about attending or logistics, please reach out to CarlyStemmer@Loyalty360.org**