Based on the results of literature review as well as on the preliminary consultations with field experts, we found out 3 major ways of how bank loyalty program with travel bonus rewards are usually designed:

1. As debit or credit cards which allow to accumulate travel bonuses (miles/points) only (= travel bankcard),

2. As bankcards which offer a range of various kinds of bonuses which could be accumulated, however, the cardholder needs to select only one of them and it may be travel bonuses,

3. When there is no specified travel bankcard with bonuses but bank's other bonus points can be redeemed on purchases of travel services (airline and railway tickets, hotel booking, etc.).

Therefore, these 3 formats were decided to create a frame for our descriptive analysis. Here it is important to notice that due to the limited focus of our research, the third way of LP with bonus travel rewards was considered in our study only if it was accompanied with a specialized bank's travel website supported by e-travel company(-ies) while such formats as to spend bank's other points for offers to receive cashback or discount from any of travel merchants without specialized technical integration in FI's LP platform were excluded from observation.

2.1.2 Data collection

As far as the topic of bank loyalty programs is rather specific and significantly understudied, there is no aggregated data which our descriptive analysis needs to be based on. That is why our first step was to collect information correctly and for that reason we designed the scheme with questions (figure 3) based on literature review and preliminary consultancies with experts mentioned above in order to produce and collect necessary data in a standardized way. In case when any banking organization poses more than 1 type of LP with bonus travel rewards (for example, offers a bankcard with travel bonuses as well as other cards with other bonuses and gives the opportunity for both of them to redeem points within the same bank's travel website), the frame applied several times to cover all the mechanics. As `travel bonuses' we describe those bonuses which usually are able to be redeemed only on purchases of journey-related services offered as rewards.

Figure 3 Scheme of how to identify the kind of bank loyalty program with point-based travel rewards

Source: created by author.

In order to receive the required pull of data we scanned the official websites and loyalty program rules of top-50 retail banks in Russia, which were selected according to the Banki.ru's ranking Banki.ru. (n.d.). Ranking of Russian banks according to deposits of individuals. Retrieved May 1, 2020, from https://www.banki.ru/banks/ratings/ of the largest Russian banking organizations in accordance to their total amounts of deposits from individuals. The table 1 was constructed for comfortable data representation and further counting: here the columns `bank' and `e-travel partner(-s) (if any)' are supposed to be filled with names while other cells are for `yes/no' answers. We consider that fifty financial organizations are sufficient to construct meaningful enough dataset in order to conclude on being in demand as well as to outline the preferences in formats of realization and e-travel technical partners. However, the increase in the number of the observed banks could be the room for improvement for further researches.

Table 1

Structure of gathering data for descriptive analysis of LPs with travel rewards

Source: created by author.

2.2 Case studies on Russian bank loyalty programs with travel rewards

2.2.1 Research design frame

As far as each bank, each audience and each loyalty program is different, there is no universal recipe for how to design LP which will both be effective and go beyond the imitation (McCall et al, 2010). However, the knowing of peculiarities introduced and applied by the market leaders could bring to smaller competitors the valuable insights on how their own activities to increase clients' loyal attitude could be structured or innovated if those ones already exist. Besides, that information can be useful also for e-travel companies because it probably may help to outline those IT product's features which are in demand from banks and, thus, should be developed in order to be competitive if OTA is eager to partner with banking organizations. With the understanding of this we reasoned the necessity to develop the first stage of our research via conducting in-depth study of cases of LPs with bonus travel rewards which were introduced and are performed nowadays by a number of the most popular retail FIs in Russia.

As we already highlighted before, our study does not cover the programs' efficiency and contribution to banks' market performances. Because of that while conducting our qualitative case studies, we focused majorly on the number of aspects of technological realization of LPs which are observable from the clients' side, are supposed to be valuable by customers and, thus, beneficial for the bank. Basing on the review of literature, we designed the frame in order to be able to describe cases in a more structured way as well as to compare them between each other and/or to outline common patterns (if any). So, the basic framework was expressed in the questions presented below:

- What is the applied kind of LP with travel rewards?

- Whether tied system is implemented?

- Whether gamification is used?

- What travel products are offered within travel website?

- Whether travel website interface has an adaptive version to be utilized from mobile devices? Whether travel website is incorporated into bank's mobile application?

- Whether travel website is customized for the bank or e-travel partner's general product design is used?

- Whether e-travel partner is mentioned within LP's webpage on the bank's official website or within travel website?

2.2.2 Selection of cases

Due to the reasons mentioned above, we decided to apply several criteria in order to select cases for the second stage of our research. First of all, we took into consideration the results of Stage 1 and was looking for the examples of loyalty programs with point-based travel rewards among the largest retail banks in Russia since their LPs are one of the most long-running within the domestic market as well as experienced a number of innovation and, thus, these practices in partnering with e-travel companies to provide FI's clients with travel rewards could be useful for both other banking organizations and other OTAs. The second constrain, which was imposed, limited the number of possible cases to those which offers specialized travel websites to redeem bonus points which are technically realized and supported by e-travel agencies. Last but not least criterion which we imposed for the selection process was not obligatory but preferable, and expressed the desire to cover cases of bank LP with travel rewards realized in partnerships with different OTAs (if any). We were aimed to conduct not less than five in-depth case studies, in order to be able to outline reasonably enough a range of general patterns and peculiarities, and to be more prepared for interviews with experts.

2.2.3 Data collection

In order to collect all necessary data to realize the case studies, we visited official websites of those banks which loyalty programs with bonus tourism-related rewards were selected for the research, and analyzed published LP rules as well as scanned travel websites for bonus redemption. In case if any pieces of required information were missed or unclear, we contacted FIs' call-centers in order to clarify those moments.

2.3 Semi-structured interviews with field experts

Here we are moving to the third stage of our academic research - interviews with field experts. Despite the fact that loyalty programs with travel incentives are a widely used marketing tool employed by banks in order to influence customer loyal behavior and attract the interest of potential clients, there are no papers dedicated to the study of mutual benefits for banks and e-travel companies from their collaboration on the creation of technological platforms for bonuses redemption on journey-related rewards. During the literature review a range of challenges, which modern financial institutions face when design, launch and maintain their LPs, were discovered. So, at this stage, we were going to find out whether technological partnerships with e-travel companies are able to provide a solution or mitigation of them. Besides, other advantages which banks receive from these collaborations were aimed to be identified. At the same time, such projects could become a full-fledged business direction for online travel agencies, thus, it was considered to be valuable for the whole e-travel industry development to outline the benefits from the implementation of their IT solutions into FIs' loyalty programs, including the outcomes, especially related to those project, which could influence positively OTAs' core business product.

In order to get deep insights and achieve expressed goals, we selected the qualitative method of semi-structured interviews conduction. As far as the topic mainly relates to the technological aspect of collaboration, we decided to choose field experts from e-travel companies' managers which have real experience in initiating, preparing, launch and accounting of a range of partnership projects on travel platforms development for the provision of travel rewards for bank loyalty programs support. We consider that interviews with banks' managers are not necessary for our study because we do not cover the efficiency of banking LPs as well as due to that their experience is usually limited by a single program prepared and managed with one FI, what may impose additional constrains to the generalization of our results. However, it is a possible way of how our study could be developed in further researches.

2.3.1 Criteria for selection of experts

Here we are going to describe the key criteria in accordance to which the experts in the field of partnership between banks and e-travel companies were identified and selected. As it was mentioned before, the number of goals, which were set for this stage of study, were most likely to be achieved if communicated which those specialists which are working in OTA and has already developed from the very beginning to the complete realization a broad range of projects. The real experience of managing the development of several travel platforms for banks' loyalty programs with tourism-related rewards is considered by the author of that research to be the most crucial aspect for being able to identify benefits for each partnering side as well as to discuss reasonably the patterns related to LPs with bonuses for journeys realization if any of them currently exist within the market.

Thus, the formal criteria were the following:

1. At least 2 years of working in the field of partnerships between banks and e-travel companies (obligatory)

2. Currently working in one of the OTAs which were identified as `partners' at stage 1 of our research (obligatory)

3. Not less than 3 projects of platform development for banking bonus-based loyalty programs were leaded by the expert from the initiation to the complete realization (obligatory)

4. At least 1 project of platform development for banking bonus-based loyalty program in foreign market was initiated and introduced by the expert (optional)

So, we imposed three obligatory indicators which were supposed to leave us with experts who obtained definitely broad experience within the field on managing several collaborations on the introduction of travel platforms for FIs' LPs with bonus rewards. The last criterion was optional but desirable since we planned to cover the topic of entrance to foreign markets and partnerships of e-travel companies with abroad banks. That is why the fourth point was obligatory not for all the experts, but it was so at least for 2 of them.

All in all, at the third stage of current research we targeted to apply rather strict indicators to the selection of area's professionals in order to make the outcomes as meaningful as possible. Due to rigidity of criteria as well as to the very limited number of specialists working in rather narrow field of partnering projects between FIs and OTAs, we considered that three semi-structured interviews with different experts are going to be the minimum possible but definitely enough to gain deep and well-reasoned results from that stage of research.

2.3.2 Questionnaire development and interviewing process

In order to conduct the semi-structured interviews with the selected experts we prepare the basic questionnaire which were aimed to discuss a number of benefits from the partnerships for each side. As it was identified during the literature review, financial institutions face a range of challenges, when design, launch and maintain their loyalty programs, among which are economic issues linked with covering costs of rewards, technological aspects related to LP's platform accessibility, usability and interface development, the necessity to collect and present to clients valuable variety of rewarding incentives and last but not least the challenging moment caused by the need to perform constantly marketing activities to promote banking LP to both interval audience (to existing FIs' clients) as well as to potential customers from outside (which could become interested in the conditions of the program and decided to switch from the competitors' services to banking organization performing that LP). Below the list of questions for semi-structured interviews with the experts is presented:

1. How long are you within the field of partnerships between banks and e-travel companies, how many projects you have launched and what are your working duties?

2. Why banks launch loyalty programs with travel rewards?

3. Are there any technological benefits for banks from partnering with e-travel company?

4. Are there any economic benefits for banks from partnering with e-travel company?

5. Are there any other benefits or challenges which the partnership helps bank to receive/solve?

6. Why e-travel company participate in such partnerships? What are the benefits or goals for it?

7. Could the partnership with foreign banks be a way for e-travel company to enter new markets?

8. Do all the e-travel companies could partner with banks or any requirements exist?

9. Could you outline are problems/stoppers which could make a partnership inefficient?

Besides, we also needed to study the beneficial points from these collaborations which e-travel companies receive in return. Due to that, a number of questions, which were both completely opened and specified to exact benefits, were added to the basic list. And finally, we needed to try to find out what are the reasons of inefficient partnerships between banks and e-travel companies (if any) in order use that in research's discussion section.

All the questions were aimed to be constructed in such a broad manner in order to give experts the possibility to express their experience regarding each section fully and not to limit them to the observation of exact challenge from the beginning. If needed, additional questions were asked to go in-depth or to move the focus close to challenging aspects found out from literature review.

The interviews were conducted with each expert individually and included 2 following steps: sending the list of questions by email in advance in order to give time for preparation, face-to-face offline or Zoom meetings during which the answers were received as well as additional in-depth questions were asked (if needed). With the permissions of interviewees their speeches were recorded and then transcribed to work with in a comfortable format.

3. Results

3.1 Bank loyalty travel reward programs in Russia

Since all the research stages were completed, with this section we are going to present the achieved results. Here we start with gains from descriptive analysis of Russian market of bank loyalty programs with travel rewards and outcomes from studies of relevant cases performed by largest retail banks in Russia.

Our first step was to construct the data, and now all the required information is collected and structurally represented in Appendix 1. Initially we were aimed to analyze top-50 Russian retail banks, however, there was not any accessible info about the presence or absence of loyalty programs in one of that amount of banking organizations, so for our further calculations the number of total samples was reduced to 49. Besides, our focus was narrowed to FIs' point-based (bonus) loyalty programs with travel rewards, in which e-travel companies are considered to be a suitable technological partner, hence, we targeted to exclude the LPs with tourism-related bonuses but, indeed, performed as cashback or compensation of previous purchases.

According to the realized analysis, more than 50% of the most demanded retail banks in Russia have already introduced and maintain projects aimed to increase customer loyal behavior and attract new clients via providing travel-related incentives. Figure 4 illustrates the distribution of FIs' preferences among various types of these programs: 25% of financial institutions realize these loyalty-oriented project in a form of bankcards with bonuses for tourism only, 18% employ other schemes which are not linked to a separate travel card, while over 8% have introduced and offer both of them.

Figure 4 Structure of market of bank loyalty programs with travel rewards in Russia Source: created by author

The most preferable kind of how to construct loyalty programs with travel rewards is that one which relates to the emission of specified debit and/or credit cards with the ability to accumulated travel-related bonuses for electronic payments and then utilize these points to pay for services linked to journeys. Specifically, over one-third of the analysis participants have launched and perform similar bank products.

Among those banking organizations which present journey-linked bonus LPs not in a format of a separate travel bankcards, the distribution of preferences towards other kinds are the following (figure 5): 46% have introduced loyalty programs in which tourism-related bonuses could be accumulated only if holder chooses that option among others, 39% offer general bonuses which could be redeemed on rewards from travel category, while other 15% of banks perform both types simultaneously.

Figure 5 Banks' preferences for implementation of LPs with travel rewards which are not specified to separate travel bankcard(-s)

Source: created by author

Figure 6 demonstrates how many loyalty programs of those 3 kinds, which we outlined for our research, are currently maintained by the most popular retail banks in Russia Federation. As we can see, financial institutions mainly prefer to implement not more than 1 scheme of rewarding their customers with points which are able to be redeemed on purchase of travel services. However, over one-sixth of banks which introduce these projects decided to perform two kinds of incentivizing mechanics at the same time. As we can see in Appendix 1, all 3 possible combinations of the co-existence of observed LPs are already utilized by FIs in Russia. Besides, it is also possible to notice that none of the largest retail banks in Russian Federation realizes simultaneously more than two kinds of loyalty programs with travel bonus rewards.

Figure 6 Statistics on a number of types of bank LPs with travel bonuses applied simultaneously

Source: created by author

Moving further, as the result of the descriptive analysis we identified that implemented banking loyalty programs with journey-related incentives was not homogenously distributed among top retail FIs. The quantity of banks which introduced at least one LP with travel bonus rewards was over 2,5 times higher for financial institutions occupying the first half of the ranking in comparison to the rest ones. It is observable at Figure 7 that about 80% of top-25 Russian retail banks have already launched and perform 1 or more types of projects under consideration, while the majority of the second part of the list does not run these LPs at all. Moreover, the total number of utilized programs, if counted by types, was even bigger (more than 3 times) if compare first segment of FIs with the following one.

Figure 7 Distribution of loyalty travel reward programs implemented by leading banks in Russia

Source: created by author

We also outlined at the first stage of our study that more than 80% of largest retail banks in Russia which already utilize loyalty programs with travel bonus incentives have already implemented their travel websites which support LPs in terms of provision of a variety of tourism-related offers for the redemption of points. That statistics is important for our study as it allows to highlight and reasonably prove actual being in demand of partnerships between financial organizations and e-travel companies which perform the role of technological partners in the design, development, launch and maintenance of these platforms. According to the gathering data, there are at least 8 IT businesses working in the field of online tourism-related services, which collaborate with FIs in Russia on the provision of banking travel websites for accumulation and redemption of travel or general bonuses. Among them are Aviakassa, Booking.com, Economy Bookings, iGlobe.ru, OneTwoTrip, Rentalcars, Travelata, Авиатурне. The representation by realized projects is demonstrated within figure 8. Thus, more than 80% of travel platforms for the observed banks were developed by OneTwoTrip, while other companies participate not more than in 1 partnerships. However, it is necessary to emphasize that our study covers over 50 of leading retail banks while the statistics on e-travel partners could differ for the rest of FIs.

Figure 8 Shares of e-travel companies' partnerships on creation of travel websites for leading banks in Russia

Source: created by author

At the same time, we are able to detect that over 20% of the most popular banking institutions in Russia have designed their loyalty programs with travel bonus rewards without launching technological platform to provide their clients with a variety of traveling services to which the accumulated points should be redeemed. In these cases, FIs tend to apply another type of rewarding scheme, cashback, what makes possible for customers to return expenses for their past purchases or to cover costs of their further shopping with the use of bank's card participated in the relevant LP.

Now we are moving to the results of the second stage of our research, in which a number of cases of banking loyalty programs with travel rewards were studied in-depth. We decided to start with the observation of projects performed by №1 Russian retail bank Sberbank, which is currently maintaining 2 of those 3 types of LPs with tourism-related rewards on which we focused our research paper. The first rewarding opportunity which the financial institution provides to the majority of its cardholder is the bank-wide loyalty program named `Spasibo from Sberbank' Sberbank. (n.d.) Spasibo from Sberbank loyalty program. Retrieved 15 April, 2020, from https://spasibosberbank.ru/, in which B2C clients gain general bonuses, called `Spasibo bonuses' or `Spasibo(-s)', for their transaction activities and purchases from partnering shops. The bank applies gamification with the aim to stimulate their customers to engage into the relationships with the FI as well as to motivate them to get acquainted with more financial products which the organization offers (Sinenko, 2020): for that reason, for example, it asks cardholders to complete the tasks as to open or top up the deposit or to pay within mobile banking in order to move to the next level where more generous rewards are available. The accumulated points `Spasibo' could be utilized as money when purchasing merchant-partners' goods or to be redeemed on buying travel services on spasibosberbank.travel incorporated into the LP's general website. Considering the variety of journey-related products, the platform offers tickets of the majority of airline tickets, hotel accommodations worldwide and railway tickets in Russia as well as at least on a number of directions in Europe. The travel website is completely stylized according to the Spasibo loyalty program's design and the e-travel partner (OneTwoTrip), which provides the offers available on spasibosberbank.travel, does not represented with the logotype of its brand while it is mentioned just legally within the webpages' footers and LP rules as the tourism-related service provider Sberbank. (n.d.). Spasibo Travel Program Rules. Retrieved 15 April, 2020, from https://spasibosberbank.ru/media/uploads/rules_onetwotrip_2.pdf. Moving to the overview of usability and interface, the platform has both desktop and adaptive version for mobile devices. Besides, this website with tourism-related category of rewarding offers is incorporated also in the mobile application of `Spasibo from Sberbank' loyalty program what allows to keep the customer at the same ecosystem while dealing with LP.

The second project with travel rewards, performed by Sberbank, is the specified bankcard `Сберкарта тревел'. That bank product with included loyalty program was launched at the end of 2019 and allows the cardholders to receive and accumulate points called `Sbermiles' RBC. (2019). Sberbank launched program with `sbermiles' for travelers. Retrieved from URL: https://www.rbc.ru/finances/26/12/2019/5e04792e9a79475e2b9991d9. For that LP Sberbank added the mechanics of tiers which allows to stimulate peoples to transact more and to keep more money on the bank account as well as to encourage more the `better clients': thus, in general, the amount of rewarding varies for daily and travel purchases from 1% to 3% and from 4% to 10% respectively, and it depends on monthly payment activities or sum of card's balance Sberbank. (n.d.). Sberkarta Travel. Retrieved 15 April, 2020, from https://www.sberbank.ru/ru/person/bank_cards/debit/travel_card. As for the technological platform, where `sbermiles' could be redeemed to purchase tourism-related services, the FI utilizes the same one as in the `Spasibo from Sberbank' loyalty program. Last but not least, in both projects the bank provides additional rewarding bonuses if LPs' participants purchase airline or railway tickets and hoteling accommodations on spasibosberbank.travel paying with the use of real money Sberbank. (n.d.). Spasibo Travel from Sberbank. Retrieved 15 April, 2020, from https://spasibosberbank.travel/.

Here we are proceeding with the outcomes of the case study on loyalty programs with rewards for travelling offered by one of the leading retail banks on Russian market - Gazprombank. The financial institution introduced and presents new bankcard which offers their holders to select and receive one of the two types of rewarding incentives: the first option is `cashback', while the second one is the accumulation on `miles' for journeys. In order to be able to motivate cardholders pay more electronically as well as to attract and thank `better' clients, bank applies the system of tiers, according to which the accrual of bonuses increases progressively depending on monthly total expenditures made with that card. Thus, consumers may gain up to 4 miles per each 100 rubles spent for their purchases Gazprombank. (n.d.). Bankcard with cashback and miles. Retrieved 16 April, 2020, from https://www.gazprombank.ru/personal/cards/4594717/. The collected bonus points could be utilized in order to by railway or plane tickets as well as to book hotels via gazprombank.onetwotrip.com. That technological platform was developed, launched and performed by e-travel company OneTwoTrop in order to support the outlined loyalty program of Gazprombank. As we identified, the constructed travel website is designed differently in comparison to partner's main IT product (www.onetwotrip.com): the starting page is realized in corporate colors of the bank, the information about bankcard with travel LP is represented within it as well as the header of the site contains FI's logotype. However, in that case we are able to find out easily which company plays the role of bank loyalty program's technological partner providing offers for miles redemption, because the OneTwoTrip brand is represented in the footer of gazprombank.onetwotrip.com and due to the subdomain's name. Just the same as in previous cases, Gazprombank's travel website has been constructed considering the criterion to be utilized from mobile devices and, thus, it obtains the adaptive version. That LP, as a whole, was also created considering the need to add more value to ordinary purchases on its special platform, thus, the bank rewards program participants with the additional miles if they buy airline and railways tickets and book hoteling accommodations on gazprombank.onetwotrip.com. The number of additional scores varies from 2 to 6 miles per each spend 100 rubles and depends on the type of ordered travelling service Gazprombank. (n.d.). Bankcard with cashback and miles. Retrieved 16 April, 2020, from https://www.gazprombank.ru/personal/cards/4594717/.

The next case under consideration was bankcard products with bonuses for touristic services named `Alfa Travel' and `Alfa Travel Premium' which are issued and offered by Alfa Bank. Just like in cases of `Сберкарта тревел' and Gazprombank's cards, the tier-based system is applied. The percentage of rewarding scores is estimated in accordance to the total sum of purchases made electronically during the month. However, the highest possible rate is also defined by the level of issued card: thus, for Alfa Travel Premium it is up to 11% for expenditures on tourism-related services and up to 5% for other shopping, while for Alfa Travel it may reach only 9% and 3% respectively Alfa Bank. (n.d.). Alfa Travel Loyalty Program. Retrieved 16 April, 2020, from https://travel.alfabank.ru/terms. The accumulated bonus points, called miles, could be redeemed to pay for a wide range of airline and railway tickets as well as on hotel bookings all over the world made via travel.alfabank.ru. That technological platform, providing loyalty program's participants with the variety of travel services in exchange to the collected rewarding scores, was developed and is currently supported by e-travel company `E-commerce Corporation' LLP also known under the brand `Aviakassa' Ibid.. The site travel.alfabank.ru is realized with the implementation of a completely different design in comparison to Aviakassa's core products (www.aviakassa.com), so it was stylized especially for the Alfa Bank. Similar as it was outlined during Sberbank's case study, the e-travel partner is not promoted within the platform or on bank's official website - there is just legal company's name mentioned in program's documents. Considering interface of travel.alfabank.ru, we are able to conclude that it is able to adapt to the mobile version of users' screens, thus, it is friendly to be used from various electronic devices.

One more case study was realized covering those 2 types of LPs with travel rewards introduced and performed by Russian Agricultural Bank. That financial institution demonstrates the tactics of encouraging consumer loyalty which seems to be close to the one identified in Sberbank's case: there are both special travel bankcard `Путевая карта' and general loyalty program called `Урожай', in which the holders of a number of other debit and credit cards could accumulate bonuses Russian Agricultural Bank. (n.d.). Rules of loyalty program `Урожай'. Retrieved 16 April, 2020, from https://www.rshb.ru/download-file/245749/~2320578.pdf. The major distinction consists in that Russian Agricultural Bank within both LPs offers their participants to collect the same rewarding scores which then could be redeemed on goods and services represented on LP's platform. As for the first project (`Путевая карта'), the system of tiers, which allows to receive more bonuses if spend more, is not applied, however, the financial institution offers greater amount of points for all the purchases in `tourism' category - 3% in comparison to 2% for other expenditures Russian Agricultural Bank. (n.d.) Bankcard 'Путевая карта'. Retrieved 16 April. 2020, from https://www.rshb.ru/natural/loans/creditcard/putevaya/. Furthermore, we also did not identify any obvious tier-based or gamification mechanics implemented within the second type of the observed loyalty programs utilized by the bank. Moving closer to the redemption opportunities, the clients are able to spend their collected points for a variety of merchant-partners' goods or services, including tourism-related ones (airline and railway tickets, hotels) which are incorporated into the general LP's platform. The travel offers are represented as a separate category within the mentioned system, not customized additionally as well as the e-travel partner's logotype is not represented within it.

The next case which was studied during the stage 2 of our research was Raiffeisen Bank and one of its loyalty programs realized in a format of separate bankcards with travel bonuses. The project under consideration is the debit and credit cards called Travel Rewards which encourage their holders for paying electronically in order to be rewarded with travel miles. The major difference of that program from those of the same kind analyzed above and below is that a separate platform, which provides cardholders with possible touristic services for points redemption, was not design and the participants are given the opportunity to accumulate and redeem bonuses at the e-travel partner's main website Raiffeisen Bank. (n.d.). Travel Rewards. Retrieved 18 April, 2020, from https://www.raiffeisen.ru/retail/cards/credit/visa-gold-travel-rewards/. The OTA supporting Travel Rewards LP is iGlobe.ru and within its core IT platform the following tourism-related products are represented: plane and train tickets, hotels, transfers and insurances. Due to the obvious reasons, in that case the travel website is not customized for the bank, however, the bankcard's image is placed as the banner on starting webpage iGlobe.ru. (n.d.). Online travel agency. Retrieved 16 April, 2020, from https://www.iglobe.ru. The iGlobe.ru's platform was identified to be not mobile-friendly because the content does not have an adaptive design for the smartphone screens. In general, the rewarding scheme includes certain percentages of miles for debit and credit cards which the client collects from every transaction. Additional accumulations are available if purchasing services on the partner's platform www.iglobe.ru. In order to make the Travel Reward program more attractive, the bank grants 1 000 bonus points on the cardholder's birthday.

The following case which we studied at stage 2 was the loyalty travel reward program performed by Tinkoff Bank in Russia. The project mainly refers to the bankcard ALL Airlines which major advantage over banking cards co-branded with airlines (which are not covered in our research paper) is that it allows to collect points (miles) redeemable for any plane tickets, thus, it is not limited by one or another brand of flight service provider. The proposed scheme of miles accumulation generally implies the fixed percentage of scores returning back from each transaction made electronically Tinkoff Bank. (n.d.). ALL Airline. Retrieved 18 April, 2020, from: https://www.tinkoff.ru/cards/debit-cards/all-airlines/?card=debitAllAirlinesBlack. One important peculiarity which distinguish that case from others under consideration is that the travel websites supporting the loyalty program exists, however, the collected miles could not be redeemed on it. So, the mechanics of how ALL Airlines cardholders receive their rewards is realized in a format of compensations of costs on the previous purchases of plane tickets paid with that bankcard which are able to be made via Internet banking service platform Ibid.. However, the travel website was launched and is operating nowadays, and the main benefit which it brings to Tinkoff Bank clients is the additional bonuses earned from purchasing of touristic services here. The represented offers are supported by a number of e-travel companies: hotels - Booking.com, railway tickets - OneTwoTrip, tours - Travelata.ru, car rentals - EconomyBookings.com and RentalCars.com, while the variety of airline services are provided by Tinkoff Bank itself. The travel platform is currently incorporated into the bank's official website as the section called Tinkoff Travel as well as several products (flights and hoteling accommodations) are also added to the banking mobile application Ibid.. All aspects of that system are smartphone-friendly. Considering the platform's design and the promotion of e-travel partners, we concluded that the style of the whole bank's website is extended and applied significantly to the observed system too and that partnering online travel agencies are represented with their logotypes under the forms searching tourism-related offers as well as their brand names are mentioned in loyalty program rules Ibid.. Thus, the case of Tinkoff Bank is one more illustrative example of how the loyalty travel reward program could be realized in order to thank positive client's behavior with a variety of rewarding offers but in that example `gifts' are limited by airline services only. However, the customers still achieve some benefits from utilizing the specially constructed platform.

Now we are moving to the study of several cases presented by banks which occupies the second part of the list created at stage 1 of our research. Further we are going to analyze in accordance with our frame the project implemented by Zenit Bank. As we identified before, that financial institution currently performs one type of loyalty programs with travel rewards: it is the separate bankcard named `Zenit Travel' which allows clients to accumulate bonus miles and spend them on travelling. Just like we already described in several cases before, that LP's rewarding scheme was also improved via the application of tier-based system defining a number of miles which the holder receives depending on total transaction activities demonstrated during a month Zenit Bank. (n.d.). Zenit Travel card. Retrieved 18 April, 2020, from: https://www.zenit.ru/personal/cards/travel-cards/. In order to enable Zenit Travel cardholders to redeem their bonuses, the bank collaborates with e-travel service provider OneTwoTrip which launched and proceeds to maintain the travel platform zenit.onetwotrip.com/ru, where clients can choose from a wide range of diversified touristic services. In addition to rather traditional airline flights, railway services and hotels, that website also includes offers to rent a car for or during the journey. Considering the design, the platform tends more to be described as co-branded since both bank's and OTA's logotypes are placed within the header of the webpages. Moreover, zenit.onetwotrip.com/ru is not stylized in accordance to the official website of Zenit Bank. However, it also looks different in comparison to the core IT product of OneTwoTrip (www.onetwotrip.com), thus, the platform's design could be defined as neutral enough. At the same time, on its official website the bank does not present e-travel partner's logotype as well as does not mention its brand name within the card's description Ibid.. When tested bank travel website's interface friendliness, we found out that starting webpage was not represented in an adaptive format if accessing it with a smartphone, however, the rest of pages were able to adapt for both desktop and mobile screens. Last but not least, Zenit Bank incentivizes the loyalty program participants not only to utilize zenit.onetwotrip.com/ru for miles redemption and, thus, gaining travel rewards for their loyalty but also to realize their ordinary purchases of airline and railway services, hotel booking and car rentals via providing greater accrual of bonuses for these transactions, as well as Sberbank's and Gazprombank's projects do Ibid..

And one more case from the second part of our list of the most popular retail banks in Russia was decided to be the project aimed to reward clients' loyal behavior towards the financial institution and introduced by Novosibirsk Social Commercial Bank "Levoberezhny" or Levoberezhny Bank. The FI performs one kind of LPs with travel rewards which is realized in a format of general rewarding option to which the majority of debit and credit cards offered by that banking organization are able to join. If do that, the cardholders begin to receive back a fix percentage from each payment made with their bankcards in a form of bonus points which could be spent then for touristic booking on nskbl.onetwotrip.com/ru Levoberezhny Bank. (n.d.). OneTwoTrip loyalty program. Retrieved 19 April, 2020, from https://www.nskbl.ru/private/cards/loyalty/onetwotrip/. That travel platform was introduced in partnership with e-travel company OneTwoTrip, which we already observed within other cases. Moreover, on its official website, Levoberezhny Bank promotes this loyalty program as the collaborative project performed together with OTA mentioned above Ibid.. Besides, the e-travel partner's logotype is presented near the bank's one in the header of nskbl.onetwotrip.com/ru as well as the design repeats the structure of OneTwoTrip's main platform (www.onetwotrip.com), although the pictures and marketing information is different. The website offers to loyalty program's participants a broad range of travelling services among which are the classic trio of airline and railway tickets and hoteling facilities worldwide accompanied by rental of automobiles. The bank travel platform is developed to be friendly for accessing from mobile devices as it has an adaptive version of webpages. Despite the fact that Levoberezhny Bank's LP with tourism-related bonus rewards does not involve any gamification or tier-based mechanics to enhance clientele's positive behavior towards the FI, that banking organization rewards all new participants joining to the observed program with welcome bonuses of 500 or 1 000 points for classic and premium cardholders respectively Ibid..

All in all, the two-staged analysis of bank loyalty travel reward programs in Russia brings us with the number of valuable conclusions. First of all, we identified that the point-based tourism-related LPs are already widely implemented by banks in Russia - more than a half of the leading retail banking organizations perform one or more projects of encouraging customer loyal attitude in that format nowadays. Secondly, the bankcard which allows to accumulate travelling bonuses only is the most preferable kind of banking loyalty programs with travel rewards among those which are implemented in Russian Federation. Thirdly, those financial institutions which are closer to the top of the ranking of the most popular among B2C clients, more tend to develop and launch tourism-related LPs. Besides, we found out the majority of banking loyalty programs of the observed type were introduced and are performed together with a specialized travel website providing a range of incentivizing gains for LP's participants - the journey-linked services to redeem accumulated points for. We also identified that at least 8 e-travel companies are partnering with the leading retail banks in Russia with the reason to develop and support those platforms while the most frequent e-travel partner was estimated to be OneTwoTrip.

At the same time, we studies cases in-depth and discovered that there are a number of both general patterns and individual peculiarities within those projects which were already introduced by the most popular retail banks in Russia. Considering the aspects of general rewarding scheme structures applied by the observed banking organization, it is possible to conclude that implementation of tier-based system aimed to enhance clients' transaction activities and provide greater rewards to better customers is already widely used with loyalty travel reward programs. Moreover, the gamification mechanics was also found out to be applied, however, not as frequently as the first technique. Besides, several banks, which not utilize tiers or games, introduce a variety of additional point-related benefits from joining to and participation in LP with travel rewards, among which are welcome bonuses and granting extra scores for customer's birthday. As for the platforms created to provide loyalty programs' participants with traveling services to purchase and redeem accumulated points, the majority of them are done in collaboration with e-travel companies and contain at least three following products: airline flights, railway tickets and hoteling accommodations. The designs of these websites usually differ from those of the core IT products of partnering online travel agencies and from each other, however, the total stylizing in accordance to the banks' official sites and corporate colors was identified to be not a widely utilized practice. Concluding on the mobile-friendliness of platforms' interfaces, we are able to state that the majority of them were created to be delivered via various types of devices as they have adaptive versions of content representation. Besides, sometimes travel website could also be incorporated in bank's mobile applications. E-travel companies are generally mentioned as travelling service providers with their legal names in LP's rules and within platforms' footers, however, the cases in which the bank promotes loyalty program as a collaborative project and mentions OTA's brand also exist. The last but not least, financial institutions tend to utilize specified websites not only for customers' accumulated points redemption but also to attract their ordinary spending on touristic services to be realized through these systems via offering additional bonuses for such purchases.

3.2 Benefits from partnerships between banks and e-travel companies

3.2.1 Experts

Moving closer to the semi-structured interviews, which was planned for the stage 3 of our research, we need to notice that the experts requested to keep their privacy and stay anonymous. Due to that reason, the information related to names of interviewees, banks and e-travel companies was depersonalized as well as the outcomes will also be significantly generalized if them were stated by more than one participant.

We succeeded to find and recruit three field experts who fit our requirements completely:

Expert 1

Has more than 4 years of working experience in field of partnerships between OTAs and banking organizations aimed to provide travel platforms for banks' loyalty programs with tourism-related rewards. During her career expert 1 has initiated, developed and launched more than 10 projects with bonus-based integrations. Nowadays, her working duties are mostly referred to heading the department, choosing the strategies for development, managing and developing the collaborations with key partners from company's portfolio. The personal portfolio of projects introduced by Expert 1 includes both realized for foreign and domestic banks.

Expert 2

Possessed 3-year experience of working in field of partnerships between e-travel companies and bank. She managed from the beginning to the complete introduction more than 5 project of the creation of platforms for FIs' loyalty bonus programs in Russia. In addition to new partners search and development, daily duties of expert 2 includes accounting of existing partnering banks, including the planning of upgrades and overall managerial support of banks' team.

Expert 3

Has been working more than 2 years in sphere of OTA and FIs collaborations from both sides. During her career in e-travel company, she initiated, managed the creation and introduced of 5 partnering projects with bonus integrations to banking loyalty programs on both Russian and foreign markets. Her current duties consist mainly in search for and communication with potential partners, development and total accounting of all aspects of already launched collaborations.

All three experts are currently working in e-travel companies which were outlined (Appendix 1) to be the technical partners of top-50 largest retail banks in Russia.

3.2.2 Results

The below we are going to represent the results of semi-structured interviews with experts in field of partnerships between banks and e-travel companies which were conducted with the goal to identify possible beneficial outcomes for both parties of those projects. The positive gains for banks were mainly research in terms of being able to solve/mitigate the challenges or suit the modern requirements, outlined during the literature review, which financial institutions face when design and launch loyalty programs with bonus rewards. Besides, the benefits for e-travel companies were also discovered and placed below. Here the major results are aggregated and represented, while their comprehensive explanation and discussion is going to be provided in the next section of our research paper. All the experts stated that identified beneficial aspects are not 100% sure to be achieved in every collaborative project since the practical results depend considerably on the discussed terms and conditions of each partnership, on peculiarities of introduced LP, bank's audience as well as on OTA's IT solution readiness and its experience in the field of support of banking loyalty programs with travel rewards.