Loyalty in Mobility: The Hidden HR and Tax Questions No One Is Asking
- Duncan Kennett
- 4 days ago
- 3 min read
Loyalty programmes are quickly becoming a staple of modern mobility services. From fuel networks and car-sharing apps to multimodal travel platforms, rewards have become part of the user experience.
Consumers now expect more than just points or discounts; they want personalised, seamless and smart benefits that reflect their behaviour and preferences. Loyalty has evolved from a marketing add-on into a core engagement tool.
But there’s one question the industry keeps dodging: what happens when those loyalty rewards are earned during business travel?
As PHC Mobility’s Duncan Kennett puts it:
“The industry is doing a great job making loyalty more sophisticated, but we rarely talk about what happens when employees earn rewards through their employer’s mobility programme. Are they a fringe benefit? Should they be part of salary packaging? Are they an employee benefit under employment law?”
These questions may sound academic, but they carry real-world consequences for employers, payroll teams and mobility providers alike.
Why Loyalty Makes Sense, and Why It Complicates Things
There’s no denying that loyalty works. For mobility providers, rewards drive engagement, strengthen retention, and unlock valuable behavioural data. For users, they make everyday travel more rewarding and personal.
“Loyalty is a great engagement tool,” says Duncan. “It nudges better behaviours — like choosing greener routes or off-peak travel — while helping providers build stronger relationships with their users.”
But when loyalty overlaps with work-related mobility, the lines begin to blur.
If an employee earns points while using a company-funded mobility card, who do those rewards belong to; the company or the individual? Should they be taxed, tracked, or declared as part of employment income?
These are not fringe considerations. They sit at the crossroads of HR, tax, compliance and employee fairness.
“The challenge,” Duncan explains, “is that employment law, tax rules and payments schemes haven’t caught up with how mobility is evolving. Providers want to reward usage, but employers are left unsure how to account for those rewards. The result is that it often just gets ignored. And ignoring it comes with risks.”
Loyalty Rewards: A Growing Grey Area
The legal and financial implications of employee loyalty rewards include:
Fringe benefits and taxation: Loyalty points earned on business trips could, in theory, be viewed as a benefit-in-kind, triggering tax or reporting obligations.
Employment contracts and fairness: If some staff accumulate more rewards than others due to their job roles, it can raise questions of fairness or even contractual entitlement.
Corporate accounting complexity: Businesses may need to decide whether these points count as company assets, employee benefits, or third-party incentives. Each category comes with different reporting requirements, hence the complexity.
Compliance and transparency: Without clear communication, employees may not even realise that rewards earned on company travel might be considered taxable or declarable.
This is where the mobility ecosystem must evolve. The design of loyalty programmes for business users can no longer be treated as an afterthought.
PHC Mobility’s Perspective: Design with Compliance in Mind
At PHC Mobility, we believe loyalty must be designed for enterprise use, not just adapted from consumer models.
“It’s not about killing loyalty,” Duncan clarifies. “It’s about making sure it’s structured responsibly, so that employers know where they stand, and employees aren’t accidentally receiving undeclared benefits.”
To achieve that, PHC advocates a design-first, compliance-aware approach.
Separate business and personal use
Clearly define which rewards are earned on personal versus company-funded trips.
Employer opt-in
Let companies decide whether to enable loyalty for employee accounts.
Tiered benefits
Limit business-related rewards to mobility credits or sustainable travel perks, not cash-equivalent gifts.
Transparent communication
Make the value, purpose, and ownership of loyalty points explicit in user terms and company policy.
Jurisdictional flexibility
Adapt to local employment and tax laws. Loyalty may be benign in one market but reportable in another.
Loyalty in Mobility: The Path Forward
Mobility platforms and payment providers have an opportunity — and a responsibility — to rethink loyalty from the ground up.
The next wave of innovation won’t just be about how loyalty rewards users, but how those rewards interact with corporate governance and legal compliance.
“We talk a lot about loyalty as a marketing mechanic,” Duncan concludes, “but for B2B mobility, it’s also a compliance topic. The moment business money is involved, loyalty becomes part of the employer-employee relationship, and that needs clear rules.”
By building loyalty programmes that are transparent, compliant, and configurable to different use cases, mobility providers can turn potential friction into trust.
Because in the end, loyalty is not only about rewarding journeys, it’s also about strengthening relationships across the entire ecosystem: between drivers, employers, and providers alike.
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