Odynn’s CEO John Garner on Transforming Rewards

In this interview, we sit down with John Taylor Garner, the founder and CEO of Odynn, a pioneering company at the forefront of the loyalty market and rewards optimization. Garner, an entrepreneur with a vision to transform how consumers interact with and benefit from loyalty programs, has steered Odynn from its early beginnings as a Card Curator to its current stature as a key player in the FinTech and travel industries.

With a unique blend of technology, innovation, and customer-centric strategies, Garner shares his journey, challenges, and insights into the evolving landscape of customer rewards and how Odynn is shaping the future of this space.

Join us as we delve into the mind of a leader who is redefining the way we think about loyalty and rewards in our daily transactions.

Origin of Odynn

SBS – What inspired the founding of Odynn and its rebranding from Card Curator? How do you see Odynn embodying the qualities of its namesake, Odin?

John – We started Card Curator to help consumers maximize their earning and redemption of points & miles automatically because our entire founding team (John Talyor Garner, Bruce Garner, and Anuj Patel) are all massive points & miles nerds themselves!

During COVID, airlines and hotels shifted from static award pricing to dynamic award pricing. Static award pricing is where hotels have fixed points costs per category, and airlines have fixed mileage posts between regions. These were called award charts and were publicly available. Our core algorithm was built on these. As airlines and hotels started becoming more dynamic, we made the difficult decision to shut down Card Curator.

From the ashes of Card Curator, Odynn was born to solve the dynamic pricing issue, not for consumers directly but for the financial institutions and travel companies that sell to consumers. We had the right team, at the right place, at the right time, to realize dynamic pricing would break traditional loyalty programs across the board for airlines, hotels, banks, fintechs, and other companies.

Target Market

SBS – Who is your primary target audience? How do you tailor your services to meet the diverse needs of your users?

John – Odynn has one product that is distributed in four different ways. Odynn provides live award pricing (points for hotels and miles for airlines), cash pricing, points as cash (points from major bank loyalty programs redeemed for cash), and transferable rates (points from major bank loyalty programs redeemed for hotel points or airline miles). Odynn then uses ML to recommend the optimal redemption method for the end user based on their personal preferences, unique characteristics, award balances, status, etc. We update this pricing upwards of five times per day for the full forward 12-month calendar.

First, we package and categorize the raw pricing data and raw anonymized and aggregated user redemption data for reselling to (charged per volume):

1. Large media companies wanting to generate novel data studies to compete with The Points Guy, Nerd Wallet, Bankrate, Credit Karma, etc.
2. Airlines and hotels that want to know what their competitors are doing and how their programs are structured and valued
3. Airlines and hotels that want a complete picture of consumer travel (loyalty and cash) across all programs
4. Travel insurance companies (AIG, Aon, AXA, New York Life, Travelers, etc.) that want to accurately price award travel to provide better-priced consumer travel insurance on travel that includes parts or is entirely booked with points & miles

Second, we distribute all of our pricing via APIs for airlines and hotels for points, miles, cash, points as cash, and transferable rates, and all of our loyalty program aggregation via APIs for airline and hotel award balances, status, credits, free nights, upgrades, etc, and our GenAI chatbot via API providing live pricing in points, miles, cash, points as cash, transferable rates, and general loyalty knowledge. We distribute this to (charged per API call, SaaS agreement):

5. Travel tech metas (Kayak, Trip Advisor, Google Flights, etc.) that want to layer in loyalty pricing into their offerings as they are paid on clicks, not bookings
6. Travel GDSs (Sabre, Amadeus, Travelport, etc.) to distribute our award loyalty pricing to all of their clients as a new data stream revenue source
7. Fintechs and financial institutions that already have their own travel portal UI/UX and wish to layer in our API offerings to enhance their services, like Capital One and their travel portal powered by Hopper.

Thir, we package all of our APIs in an award-winning UI/UX, providing a world-class customer experience via White/Grey Label solutions that are fully customizable to (charged per user or per API call):

8. Fintechs and financial institutions that have loyalty programs but a sub-par customer experience and/or travel portals and are looking to augment and improve them with our full offering. We are targeting the major fintechs and FIs (Bilt, Brex, Chase, AMEX, Citi, Barclays, Bank of America, etc.)
9. Loyalty program providers (Ascenda, Plugsgrade, etc.)
10. Corporate travel bookers (SAP Concur, Flight Centre, etc.) who are looking to build out their business leisure arms with targeted prompts and popups pushing corporate employees to book their blended travel through their systems directly with points and miles. This serves as a free benefit for employees, covers corporations from risk and compliance for travel, and opens new revenue streams for corporate travel bookers

Fourth, we partner with Duffel to provide cash booking, ticketing, and customer service to plug into Awayz to complete the world’s first holistic travel portal. Live award pricing for flights and hotels, award-winning UI/UX, and entire CX, along with heavily discounted cash rates and top-tier customer service. We distribute this to (via net revenue share on gross cash travel commissions):

11. Fintechs, neo-banks, small to mid-tier banks, credit unions, large banks, up to the majors (Bilt, The Points Guy, SoFi, Super.com, etc.) for those looking to either ditch Expedia and Booking.com for a faster, better, more attractive, holistic, cheaper, and fully customizable option or launch their first travel portal (Curve, Discover, Citizens, etc.)
    1. We can launch the web in less than one week with full customization and mobile in less than two
    2. We subtract minimal upfront build costs and monthly maintenance costs from the rev-share, so the deal is pure profit for our partners
    3. It is a true tri-party contract with Duffel, who handles all cash travel bookings and customer service
    4. We do not have a six-month waiting period like Expedia and Booking.com, and we don’t take over six months to integrate
    5. We don’t charge an arm and a leg for setup fees or maintenance, and we are not greedy on commissions
12. Card issuers (Marqeta, Fiserv, etc.) and payment networks (Mastercard, Visa, AMEX, Discover), looking to offer travel portal bundling out of the gate for new cards

Unique Selling Proposition

SBS – What differentiates Odynn’s services from other rewards optimization platforms and travel services in the market?

John – We are the only platform with live award pricing for every major airline and hotel, 100% independent, purely built for B2B enterprise-grade scalability, and fully modular.

Expedia and Booking.com do not have the technical expertise, the right team, or the industry knowledge (loyalty is very different than cash travel bookings). Expedia and Booking.com are sitting on billions of dollars of tech debt that they cannot and will not dig out of. If they wanted to get into this space, they would just acquire us. It would be astronomically cheaper for them to do so than try to build it themselves. All of this being said is secondary, though, to the fact that there is no booking revenue from loyalty. Airlines and hotels do not pay third parties for point & miles bookings. Expedia and Booking.com are OTAs. Their entire business model and revenue are predicated on collecting commissions on cash bookings.

This is not a problem for Expedia or Booking.com customers. This is a problem for bank customers, the premium and ultra-premium card holders that earn rewards. This is a problem the banks need to solve and they cannot solve it with Expedia or Booking.com for the reasons listed above, and Expedia and Booking.com won’t help the banks for the reasons listed above.

Challenges and Solutions

SBS – What were the biggest challenges you faced in creating an awards optimization platform, and how did you overcome them?

John – The biggest challenge is inventing a method to aggregate the large amounts of data that we require for our pricing in a manner that is not brute-force scraping. A lot of the players in loyalty optimization on the B2C side do this, and it is a massive drain on the target websites (airlines and hotels). This has opened them up to lawsuits and their methods have a measurable negative impact on other businesses. We have developed a proprietary method that is both high touch and light touch, which not only allows us to not harm the airline and hotel websites but also allows us to infinitely scale our product offering to as many end users as possible!

Revenue Model

SBS – Can you describe the revenue model of Odynn? How does it ensure a sustainable business while providing value to the users?

John – Odynn is B2B and B2B2C. We well into major financial institutions, fintechs, travel techs, corporate travel management companies, and others via our APIs charged on a per-call SaaS basis, our white label solutions charged on a per-user basis, or via our holistic travel portal where we rev share on the gross travel commissions.

Customer Engagement

SBS – How does Odynn engage and retain its customers, ensuring they get the most out of their experience with your platform?

John – First of all, we provide a consistent experience. We are always up, accurate, fast, stable, and reliable. Second, we are constantly improving and enhancing our platform, providing requested features, add-ons, and functionality. Finally, we provide top-tier customer service. If any of our users are having trouble, experiencing a bug, or want a new feature added, we respond to them almost immediately and always within 24 hours, even on weekends and holidays.

Technology and Innovation

SBS – What role does technology, especially machine learning and algorithms, play in Odynn’s services?

John – Machine learning is critical to our recommendation system. It’s baked directly into our core algorithm that determines the optimal redemption, be it points, miles, or cash, for each individual user. This optimal redemption recommendation is what helps drive our partners’ loyalty programs forward!

Partnerships and Collaborations

SBS – How do strategic partnerships with entities in the finance, fintech, and travel industries enhance Odynn’s offerings?

John – Our strategic partnerships allow us to expand our product offerings on our platform. We are the connective tissue between travel, loyalty, fintech, and finance. Our partners allow us to offer cash booking, ticketing, and customer service. In the future, they will allow us to offer much more.

Expansion and Growth Plans

SBS – What are your future plans for expanding Odynn’s product offerings and services?

John – We are adding flights in the next couple of weeks and are launching our holistic travel portal in early February. After that, we plan to offer full loyalty account syncing and will continue to push until we have built a full loyalty roll-up offering as an embedded fintech solution!

Feedback and Improvement

SBS – How do you incorporate user feedback into the continuous improvement of Odynn’s services?

John – We have Slack channels with all of our customers to facilitate direct, immediate feedback, bug reports, etc. This allows us to categorize and log all positive and negative feedback to learn from what we are doing.

We also have some phenomenal B2B2C partners who are bloggers, content creators, podcasters, etc. We meet with them regularly and listen to their feedback and their readers’, followers’, and listeners’ feedback as well. They serve as an amazing focus group!

Data Privacy and Security

SBS – What measures does Odynn take to ensure the security and privacy of user data?

John – Odynn does not ask for, aggregate, or store individual user PII. We do not want it, nor do we have any use for it. Once we launch loyalty account syncing, it will be an option, and not mandatory, with usernames and emails double encrypted and stored not just on separate servers but separate server providers. Even then, we still will not ask for or store individual user PII.

Advice for Entrepreneurs

SBS – As an entrepreneur, what key advice would you give to others starting a business in the FinTech or travel industry?

John – The best advice I can give is to get hands-on experience in the space you want to work on first before starting a company. Explore all the different roles, jobs, and sides of the business, both as a customer and provider. This will give you a massive head start and help you avoid unnecessary early potholes and speed bumps.

Industry Trends and Predictions

SBS – How do you see the loyalty market evolving, and what trends do you think will shape the future of rewards optimization?

John – The loyalty market, much like travel, is ripe for innovation and disruption. Everything is highly fragmented, opaque, illiquid, and difficult to navigate by design. Just like any market, over time, it will become more transparent, liquid, and simpler to navigate, not on its own but with outside forces, namely companies like ours. Loyalty is simply another asset class. Like all asset classes, financial innovation will eventually drag them into the modern era.