Third parties own the ticket infrastructure. The operator owns the train. We conceptualised a loyalty programme that could change that split, rewards and experience only where the TOC actually controls the journey, so passengers had a reason to sign into the operator’s app instead of the default aggregator. Loyalty works because we turned a trip into a relationship: program members spend 12-18% more, and they are about 70% more likely to come back. The idea was to make the controllable bits feel like they belong to the passenger.