ISeatz Laid The Rails For Travel Loyalty & Why Sundays Are Tuesdays

Forbes

4 hours ago

Kenneth Purcell didn't set out to build a loyalty infrastructure juggernaut. In fact, when he founded iSeatz in 1999, the original play was online restaurant reservations. A couple of pivots, one deep market recession, and more than two decades later, the New Orleans-based company now powers loyalty travel and lifestyle booking for the biggest names in the financial and travel industries. Think Amex. Think Delta. Think over 13.7 million travelers a year and nearly $9.6 billion in transactions.
So how did iSeatz get here—and where is it heading?
I sat down with Kenneth to learn more about his journey, the macro shifts shaping loyalty, and why personalization, not just perks, is the ultimate competitive moat.
iSeatz Moves From Fax Machines to Full-Stack Loyalty
'We started out faxing and emailing restaurant reservations to places in the French Quarter,' Kenneth told me. 'It was a different era.'
But after OpenTable outraised them and survival looked uncertain, Purcell and his team did something classic entrepreneurs do best: pivot. The business evolved from restaurant dining packages to activities and destination services, and then—by 2006—into a loyalty tech partner for airlines like Delta, offering non-air bookings with Skymiles integration.
By the time American Express came knocking in 2011, iSeatz had morphed again, becoming one of the first platforms to allow consumers to both earn and burn points on lifestyle bookings. The Amex partnership was a watershed moment—it introduced air sales and turned loyalty from a passive earn-only model into a transactional engagement channel.
A Platform at Scale
Today, iSeatz calls itself a platform-as-a-service company. By the end of this summer, it will officially be 'travel-as-a-service,' with full agency capabilities built into the backend. The company supports over 100 partners and processes billions in transactions, quietly helping power the platforms consumers know best—from airlines to credit cards.
'Our net revenue is around $100 million,' Kenneth said. 'And we run a 30% EBITDA business.'
That level of profitability and scale is rare in today's venture-fueled, growth-over-everything economy. But perhaps more interesting than the numbers is the influence iSeatz has behind the scenes.
'If there's a storm, and you're the umbrella dealer, business is good,' Kenneth quipped. 'And right now, loyalty is in a storm.'
American Express, Capital One, Chase vs. OTAs - Let The Travel Wars Ensue
When I asked Kenneth where loyalty is going in an AI and blockchain world, he didn't mince words: 'The credit card companies—Amex, Chase, Capital One—are positioned to disrupt OTAs in a major way.'
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The thesis is simple: credit card loyalty programs already own the consumer relationship. They know what you buy, when, and where—even beyond Amazon's reach. When coupled with AI, these insights will power a new era of hyper-personalization and utility.
'Imagine a world where your travel app knows your preferences, your budget, your history, and serves up a curated experience—earn and burn optimized—for just you,' Kenneth said.
Think: Minority Report meets Expedia meets Venmo—with your points as currency.
But don't expect this currency to become freely tradable anytime soon. 'There's no real incentive for Chase or Amex to let you trade loyalty currencies peer-to-peer—unless they own the exchange,' Kenneth added.
The Consumer Purchase Shift: Why Sundays Are the New Tuesdays
Shifting Consumer Travel Purchase Behavior From Tuesday To Sunday as "Return To Work" Likely Impacts ... More Consumer Behavior
The conversation turned especially fascinating when Kenneth dropped a data nugget: booking behavior is shifting. After over a decade of consistency, the day-of-week pattern for bookings changed the past few years.
'Sundays and Mondays are seeing significant lifts. Saturdays and Tuesdays are declining,' he said. The theory? Return-to-office pressures and a renewed desire to protect family time.
More surprisingly, predictive revenue models that used to work perfectly are now getting upended at the start of each month—only to snap back in line by month's end.
'Consumers are still spending—but they're doing it differently,' Kenneth said. 'Later in the cycle. More spontaneously. But not less.'
What's Next: Personalization, Premiumization, and a Tectonic Shift
As credit card issuers compete to layer more value—Chase with Sapphire Reserve, Amex teasing big moves—Kenneth sees continued growth in premium loyalty. The playbook? More perks, higher annual fees, and eventually, truly intelligent personalization.
He envisions a world where card-linked travel feels like swiping through TikTok—adaptive, personalized, intuitive, and frictionless.
'I want a loyalty platform that knows I have four boys and that I'm headed to New York for a weekend. It should serve up ideas I'll actually love, not just a random list of options,' Kenneth said. 'That's what we're building toward.'
This level of personalization will separate brands who aspire to do vs. brands that deliver on 'you know me.'
Loyalty Is Infrastructure
As someone who's worked on the front lines of consumer behavior and written books about trends for decades, I believe what Kenneth is building—and what iSeatz enables—is not just a platform, but foundational infrastructure for a new type of brand relationship. With the demand for experiences climbing and technology being a key driver that enables personalization iSeatz has the potential to unlock this rising demand.
Loyalty is no longer just about free flights. It's about salience. It's about timing. And it's increasingly about personalization at scale.
Or, as Kenneth put it: 'We're just getting started.'