Most parcel delivery companies only know one thing about the people they serve: a tracking number. GLS Hungary wanted more: an actual relationship with the people receiving and sending packages through its app.
That’s the gap the GLS VIP loyalty program was built to close. Behind the scenes, everyday shipping activity gets translated into something far more useful than a delivery status. GLS Hungary gains a live, behavior-based picture of who’s active, who’s about to upgrade, and who’s gone quiet.
Six months later, the results- more than half of app users enrolled, a 76% increase in in-app sendings compared to the previous 6 months, and real movement up the tier ladder- make a strong case that loyalty isn’t just a retail tactic.
It’s a data strategy logistics brands can’t afford to skip. Let’s see how GLS built GLS VIP, empowered by Antavo.
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What Is the GLS VIP Loyalty Program?
GLS Hungary* is part of the GLS Group, a parcel logistics company operating in more than 50 countries from Austria to Finland to North America. GLS VIP is GLS Hungary’s tier-based loyalty program, available in the GLS app since February.
Members move through three tiers based on yearly parcel volume: Plus (up to 10 parcels), Extra (11 to 20), and Premium (21 and above), each unlocking bigger shipping discounts, from a 10% welcome offer at opt-in up to a permanent 5% parcel sending discount at Premium.
Beyond the discounts, Antavo’s gamification layer keeps things active: Every fifth parcel triggers a spin on the Wheel of Fortune, and partner webshops add rotating coupons on top. See the full mechanics in the official launch announcement.
The Challenge GLS Hungary Was Facing
The first big challenge GLS Hungary was looking to solve was consignee retention, boosting shipping frequency, and app engagement. All in a hypersaturated competitor landscape.
The second initiative was to provide more value for consignees: A genuinely better experience, not just tracking updates.
And the third was to make a consignee identifiable, opted in, and describable by behavior instead of purely by tracking number.
Take notes: Before building anything, GLS Hungary completed an essential step and interviewed consignees directly in order to better understand their needs. The team inquired about what kind of logistics services consignees want, how much they would pay for them, and then developed these extra services in the app. Bringing the final product as close to ideal as possible.
The Solution: Antavo Turns Everyday Parcel Activity Into Usable Data
These are exactly the challenges Antavo and its technology partners enabled GLS Hungary to answer. Every parcel becomes a data point inside Antavo, and that data point is what turns into insight: who’s active, who’s close to a tier upgrade, who’s gone quiet.
The entire tier system runs on a so-called “parcel_event”, fired every time a member ships or receives a parcel. Currently, one clean signal is enough to move someone up a tier, unlock a milestone-based Wheel of Fortune spin, or trigger a coupon, all without a rebuild every time the rules change. It is an exciting structure already, with many new features coming soon in Phase 2 and Phase 3.
Maximizing comfort for consignees, loyalty members can gather virtual parcels within a single account using three different email addresses that they personally use for online shopping (not to be confused with a family account), boosting their odds of reaching tier upgrades faster, while still enjoying the convenience of managing everything from one place.
Gamification And Benefits
Gamification (such as Prize Wheels, Challenges, and soon-to-be-added scratchcards) keeps engagement up even between active parcel sending, and partner rewards add continuously refreshed value for consignees.
Overall, Antavo’s innovative loyalty platform empowers GLS Hungary’s roadmap to scale up and grow more and more complex instead of forcing it into a fixed shape.
“When we started the strategic phases, we had involved an external company who helped us by building the strategy for the loyalty programs. And they offered Antavo as a loyalty platform of it. It’s one of the best loyalty platforms and it’s really easy to use. The game mechanism, I guess, the steering wheels, the challenges and these scratch cards are really nice and really, really favorable even by our consignees as well.”
Results After Six Months
Six months in, the GLS VIP loyalty program already has numbers worth watching:
- 57% of all GLS app users are already loyalty program members, notable because the app was originally built for parcel tracking and sending, and the loyalty layer has only existed since February.
- 76% increase in in-app sendings since the loyalty program launch, compared to the previous 6 months.
- 46% of all Wheel of Fortune spins come from Premium-level members.
- 34% of spins come from Plus-level members.
- 20% of spins come from Extra-level members.
Tier-based profile metrics – Close to achieving 1-year target in 6 months
- Before the loyalty program, the tier-level split would’ve looked like 86% Plus, 9% Extra, 5% Premium; one member could be counted multiple times under up to 3 separate email addresses, skewing the baseline.
- Now, 6 months after launch, the split looks like: 79% Plus, 14% Extra, 7% Premium; GLS Hungary is now able to count unique member profiles.
- Close to achieving GLS Hungary’s one-year target: 74% Plus, 15% Extra, 11% Premium.
What’s Next for the GLS Hungary Loyalty Program?
The next phases of the program are already mapped out. Soon to arrive are scratch cards, new challenges, birthday gifts, and deeper profile-engagement mechanics. Plus, new services will be available for consignees in the app.
Plus, GLS Hungary plans to turn already popular one-for-all partner coupons into personalized offers, tailored to each member’s individual preferences communicated through the loyalty program.
“We’re quite excited about continuously expanding the program based on data, user testing, research, and reviews, in order to offer a truly elevated experience to our loyalty members.“
The Technology Partnership Behind the Program
Three specialized partners work alongside Antavo’s loyalty engine, combining forces to deliver a truly excellent customer experience and smooth daily operations:
- Mito: GLS Hungary’s primary implementation and support partner in its loyalty operations.
- Bloomreach: GLS Hungary’s CDP, turning Antavo’s tier and reward events into automated, real-time member emails.
In practice, that partnership looks like this:
Mito handled the initial implementation, configuring integrations plus setting up the logic, including tiers, perks, and challenges. Since go-live, Mito has stayed on, continuing to support GLS Hungary’s loyalty journey.
As for the GLS mobile app itself, it’s connecting to Antavo’s system through API integration. Initially brought to life by Supercharge, since July 2026, all UX and UI developments are sitting in-house with GLS.
Antavo’s native two-way Bloomreach integration handles the communication angle. A tier upgrade inside Antavo fires an automatic welcome email through Bloomreach. A reward claim triggers a confirmation message. A tier anniversary triggers a re-engagement email exactly a year after signup.
The Significance of Loyalty Data for Marketers
GLS Hungary’s numbers are a small case study in a much bigger shift. Every tier upgrade, every wheel spin, every reward claim adds another data point to a picture logistics brands never had before: not just where a parcel went, but who sent it, how often, and what actually motivates them to send or receive another.
For a marketer, that’s the difference between running a generic retention play and building one around real behavior.
“I strongly believe that loyalty programs are an increasing industry in the near future, because marketers need a lot of data. If you want to create an excellent customer experience, it doesn’t work if you don’t know your customers: their behavior, their motivations, their pain points. You should always ask your customers what they want and what they need. If you have the right answer, and you count with it, and develop for it, you get more ROI, more revenue, and more profit.“
Frequently Asked Questions About the GLS Hungary Loyalty Program
Why would a logistics company build a loyalty program instead of just tracking deliveries?
Logistics providers move packages for people they never actually meet as customers. A loyalty program changes that by giving consignees a reason to opt in, turning an anonymous delivery into an identifiable, describable relationship. For GLS Hungary, that identity layer is what makes marketing, not just shipping, possible.
Why is a single earn event enough to power an effective logistics loyalty program?
GLS Hungary’s entire tier system runs on one event, parcel_event. That’s a deliberate simplicity choice: fewer earn triggers means less complexity to maintain and a cleaner signal for marketers to act on. For high-frequency, low-friction categories like parcel delivery, one clean action beats ten complicated ones.
Why does tier movement like GLS Hungary’s Plus-to-Extra-to-Premium shift matter to a loyalty marketer?
Tier distribution shows whether a program is actually working, not just live. GLS Hungary’s jump from under 1% of members outside the entry tier to over 20% in six months is a direct measure of engagement, not a vanity metric. Any marketer running a tiered program should track this shift as closely as sign-ups.
What can other B2B or logistics brands learn from GLS Hungary’s approach?
GLS Hungary treated loyalty as a data strategy, where direct contact with consignees and the value-added services it offers increase customer engagement and experience. That’s the transferable lesson for any brand sitting on frequent, low-visibility customer interactions, whether that’s parcels, service calls, or subscriptions. The rewards matter, but the data layer underneath is what makes them worth building.
Conclusion
GLS Hungary didn’t need a bigger discount to build loyalty. It needed to know who was shipping, how often, and why. The GLS VIP loyalty program answers that with a single earn event, a tier structure consignees actually move through, and a technology layer (Antavo, Bloomreach, Mito, and mobile developers – at the beginning outsourced to Supercharge, later insourced to GLS) that keeps every one of those signals connected.
Six months in, more than half of app users are already members, sendings are up 76%, and real tier movement shows the mechanic works even within 6 months. The takeaway for any logistics or B2B brand watching from the sidelines: loyalty isn’t a retail-only tool. It’s a data strategy with a rewards layer on top.
Antavo is the AI loyalty and incentives platform that brings together loyalty, promotions, and agentic AI to turn customers into regulars: the customers who come back on their own, buy more often, and bring others with them. For more than a decade, Antavo has powered identity-led loyalty strategies for brands including SKIMS, Paul Smith, KFC, Flying Tiger Copenhagen, and Hyatt’s Inclusive Collection. Marketers build, change, and launch programs and promotions themselves, without waiting on engineering.
If you’re tired of paying to win the same customers twice, book a call with our experts and see how Antavo turns them into regulars.
Don’t forget your handy Loyalty Platform Comparison Worksheet!
*Within the GLS group, GLS Hungary also functions as the hub for the wider Eastern European region, covering Croatia, Slovenia, Romania, Serbia, Czechia, and Slovakia.
