If you’ve ever tried to redeem credit card points or airline miles, you know how confusing and frustrating the experience can be. What used to be a straightforward way to fly first class or book luxury hotels has become a guessing game—opaque, inconsistent, and often disappointing. In our latest Ignite Podcast episode, we sat down with John Taylor Garner, founder and CEO of Odynn, to unpack why the loyalty space broke—and how his company is building the infrastructure to fix it.
A Shift No One Saw Coming
Before founding Odynn, John was a derivatives trader on Wall Street. He started his first fintech venture, Card Curator, to help users maximize credit card rewards based on personal travel goals. It worked well—until it didn’t. In 2021, airlines and hotels quietly moved from fixed-value loyalty programs to dynamic pricing models, meaning the number of points required for a flight or hotel fluctuates like a stock price. That change obliterated Card Curator’s recommendation engine. “We realized we couldn’t predict redemptions anymore,” John explained. “And no one noticed, because no one was traveling during COVID.”
This moment became the catalyst for Odynn—a B2B platform that helps card issuers, banks, and fintechs solve the problems created by dynamic pricing and loyalty currency inflation. Essentially, Odynn provides real-time visibility into the actual value of points and miles, allowing consumers to make informed decisions within white-labeled travel portals.
Stripe for Points, Shopify for Rewards
Odynn isn’t another consumer-facing app. It’s infrastructure. Think Stripe, but for loyalty points. Think Shopify, but for white-label travel redemption experiences. The company pipes in live loyalty pricing from dozens of partners, aggregates travel inventory from suppliers like Duffel and Booking.com, and delivers a seamless interface that banks and fintechs can brand as their own.
What does this do? It reduces cardholder frustration, increases redemption, and boosts retention. “When people redeem points for meaningful travel, they get a dopamine rush,” John shared. “They feel great, and they swipe that card again to earn more points.” Odynn’s platform drives this behavior with smart personalization, fast implementation (as little as two weeks), and a modular system that fits everything from established banks to fast-growing credit card startups.
Loyalty as a Currency (And an Opportunity)
John argues that loyalty points are the largest unregulated currency in the world, totaling trillions of dollars in value. But like any currency, when too much is printed—such as when airlines sold billions in points to banks during COVID—hyperinflation occurs. Consumers stockpile points that lose value year after year, creating dissatisfaction and churn. Odynn’s goal is to introduce transparency and liquidity into this fractured market—just as financial markets did with electronic exchanges decades ago.
So where is all this heading? John sees two possible futures: an acquisition by a major bank or travel company (in line with Chase’s $4B+ acquisitions of CX Loyalty and Frosch), or growing into a standalone B2B loyalty engine, powering the next generation of embedded travel experiences. Either way, Odynn is positioning itself at the intersection of fintech, travel, and consumer engagement—and doing it at a time when banks are desperate to differentiate.
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Chapters:
Welcome & Guest Introduction (00:00 – 00:38)
From Derivatives Trading to Fintech (00:39 – 02:43)
The Credit Card Churning Era (02:44 – 04:07)
Founding Card Curator (04:08 – 05:22)
The Loyalty Pricing Collapse (05:23 – 06:45)
Misconceptions About Points and Miles (06:46 – 08:31)
The Downside of Stockpiling Rewards (08:32 – 09:19)
The Aha Moment Behind Odynn (09:20 – 10:45)
Dynamic Pricing & Loyalty Chaos (10:46 – 12:06)
Why Card Issuers Were Blindsided (12:07 – 14:00)
Odynn’s Role in the Loyalty Ecosystem (14:01 – 15:53)
Building Infrastructure for Redemption Transparency (15:54 – 17:29)
Chicken-and-Egg Challenges in Fintech (17:30 – 19:13)
Finding Product-Market Fit Without a Sales Team (19:14 – 21:02)
Modular Loyalty Infrastructure at Scale (21:03 – 22:50)
Odynn’s Business Model Explained (22:51 – 24:51)
The Exit Landscape & Loyalty M&A (24:52 – 27:20)
Expedia’s B2B Playbook and Odynn’s Future (27:21 – 29:00)
Fractured Markets & The Opportunity for Consolidation (29:01 – 31:05)
Building a Loyalty Exchange Layer (31:06 – 34:00)
The Mechanics of Points Transfers (34:01 – 38:01)
Odynn’s Integration Approach (38:02 – 40:14)
Fundraising Advice for Fintech Founders (40:15 – 42:26)
Regulatory Landscape & Loyalty Programs (42:27 – 44:36)
Early Pivots and Tough Decisions (44:37 – 46:38)
Remote Culture & Virtual Office Innovation (46:39 – 49:06)
Roam vs. Slack: Creating Connection Remotely (49:07 – 50:43)
Why PR Still Matters in B2B Fintech (50:44 – 52:43)
Advice to His Younger Founder Self (52:44 – 54:20)
Rapid Fire: Travel Hacks, Trends & Fintech Futures (54:21 – 55:47)
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