Dave Canty: The Customer Loyalty Strategy From 30 Years of Doing It Differently | Bilt Rewards

What does 30 years of building loyalty programs actually teach you? In this special episode of Loyalty TV, Amanda Cromhout speaks with Dave Canty — Senior Vice President, Head of Loyalty & Partnerships at Bilt Rewards and the 2026 International Loyalty Personality of the Year — for a wide-ranging conversation on the customer loyalty strategy insights he's picked up across Starwood, JetBlue, IHG, and now Bilt. Dave walks through the early days of Starwood Preferred Guest and how a different approach to hospitality loyalty helped shape the modern points economy, the origin of JetBlue's TrueBlue program and what it meant to build a customer retention program from scratch inside a challenger airline, the strategic reset at IHG, and the founding-team decisions that led to Bilt's rent-payment loyalty model — solving a problem no other program had ever tackled. The conversation also covers his advice to the next generation of loyalty leaders — "be brave, don't just put your skin on someone else's program" — why the biggest loyalty marketing wins come from solving real customer problems rather than copying competitors, and how Bilt's people-centric approach to loyalty is being recognized across the industry. If you're rebuilding your customer loyalty strategy, thinking about how to increase customer retention in a category crowded with copycat programs, or looking for career-tested insight from one of the most respected loyalty leaders of his generation, this is a conversation to save. Hosted by Amanda Cromhout. Show Notes: 1)Dave Canty:   / davecanty   2)International Loyalty Personality of the Year: https://internationalloyaltyawards.co... 3)Bilt Rewards: https://www.bilt.com/ 4) The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything: https://www.amazon.com/Element-Findin... Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://letstalkloyalty.com/newsletter/ Connect with us on LinkedIn:   / let-s-talk-loyalty   #letstalkloyalty #loyaltymarketing #loyaltyprograms #loyaltytv