An airport is one of the most valuable retail and hospitality environments there is: millions of people, plenty of dwell time, and a mix of parking, shops, lounges, and restaurants. Edmonton International Airport saw an opportunity to recognize and reward that on-site spend, and to build a direct relationship with travelers and the local community who pass through every day. The result is YEGplus, Canada's first true airport loyalty program.
The opportunity
An airport sees enormous numbers of people but understands surprisingly little about them. The goal was twofold: give travelers a reason to park, shop, and dine at YEG, and give the airport and its merchants real insight into the customers they serve. The experience had to feel effortless on a phone, work in both of Canada's official languages, and scale across many independent merchants under one membership.
A program built for the terminal
We designed and built the member-facing experience as a fast, mobile-friendly web app. Members join, climb from Essential to Silver to Gold, and redeem points for promo cards good toward parking, snacks, and shopping, all in English or French.
Earning is a photo away
Most of the shops and restaurants in a terminal are run by independent operators, so wiring into every point-of-sale system was never realistic. Instead, members simply photograph their receipt. AI-powered receipt recognition reads it in seconds, extracting the merchant, date, totals, taxes, and individual line items, then validates the purchase and awards the right points automatically. Built-in intelligence flags duplicates and fraud, and the same engine handles a crumpled paper receipt or a PDF across different formats and currencies.
The payoff: any merchant can take part from day one with no integration work, and members get rewarded for real purchases without typing a thing.
More than a points balance
The program is built to feel alive, not transactional. Countdown-driven contests, gift-card giveaways, surveys, and gamified moments give members a reason to open the app between trips. Every interaction flows back into a single member profile, so earning, status, and redemptions stay in sync across the terminal.
Messaging that brings members back
Earning and redeeming are only half the loop; the other half is reaching members at the right moment. We stood up a full marketing communications capability, with audience segmentation, automated lifecycle journeys, and triggered email and SMS campaigns. A welcome series onboards new members, tier and reward milestones get celebrated, and targeted offers can nudge travelers toward a specific merchant, promotion, or off-peak window the airport wants to fill, each one personalized to the member and measurable end to end.
Getting a clear picture
This is where the program changes the business. Before YEGplus, the airport was lacking first-party data on the people shopping and dining in its terminals. Today, every validated receipt builds understanding: how often a member travels through the airport, where they shop, and how much they spend per visit. Anonymous foot traffic becomes a known, addressable audience for the first time.
It works for the merchant side too. The airport can see how individual shops and restaurants are performing, spot patterns across the terminal, and design campaigns and offers that deliberately drive traffic to specific merchants. The loyalty program becomes a growth engine for the businesses inside the airport, not just a perk for travelers.
In the news
YEGplus launched to local and national coverage, from the airport's launch announcement to a closer look at how the program works.
Read the coverage · CTV News YEGplus: Edmonton airport launches loyalty program, here's how it works →What Stedion delivered
- End-to-end experience design for the member-facing app
- Front-end build of a fast, bilingual (English and French) web experience
- Integration with YEG systems
- AI-powered receipt recognition and OCR, so members earn at any merchant with no POS integration
- A marketing communications capability: segmentation, automated lifecycle journeys, and email and SMS campaigns
- Reporting and business-insights dashboards that gave the airport its first view of customer and merchant performance
- Launch and ongoing customer service support to get the program live in the terminal and ensure high customer satisfaction