General travelers tend to favor loyalty programs that have the widest volume of bookable flights and rooms, while frequent business travelers tend to prefer spiffs like upgrades at higher status tiers.
Another plus is the effort that the Freddies take to preserve the validity of the voting process.
That said, the survey is not a scientifically measured poll of travelers that’s statistically representative of elite or general travelers. Instead, the sheer size of the voting is its main claim to authority.
Freddie Awards, were given out to the world’s top travel loyalty programs, this week.
In the poll, 4.2 million frequent travelers worldwide ranked loyalty programs. The poll comes just as a major airlines have overhauled their frequent flyer rewards.: Would the move from a miles-flown to a revenue-based model make the legacy players less popular.
Winners list 2017
Awards for airlines in the Americas
- Program of the Year — Southwest Airlines – Rapid Rewards
- Best Elite Program — American Airlines – AAdvantage
- Best Customer Service — Southwest Airlines – Rapid Rewards
- Best Redemption Ability — Southwest Airlines – Rapid Rewards
- Awards for North American hotel operators were:
- Program of the Year — Marriott Hotels – Marriott Rewards
- Best Elite Program — Marriott Hotels – Marriott Rewards
- Best Customer Service — Marriott Hotels – Marriott Rewards
- Best Redemption Ability — Marriott Hotels – Marriott Rewards
Airlines, Europe and Africa:
- Program of the Year — Norwegian Air – Norwegian Reward
- Best Elite Program — Air France/KLM – Flying Blue
- Best Customer Service — Aeroflot – Aeroflot Bonus
- Best Redemption Ability — Aeroflot – Aeroflot Bonus
Hotels, Europe and Africa
- Program of the Year — Accor Hotels – Le Club Accorhotels
- Best Elite Program — Starwood – Starwood Preferred Guest
- Best Customer Service — Accor Hotels – Le Club Accorhotels
- Best Redemption Ability — Accor Hotels – Le Club AccorHotels
For the Middle East and Asia/Oceania, V Australia, IHG and Accor were the big winners.
- Program of the Year — EL AL – Matmid Club
- Best Elite Program — Virgin Australia – Velocity
- Best Customer Service — EL AL – Matmid Club
- Best Redemption Ability — Virgin Australia – Velocity
Have recent changes not sunk in?
Despite American Airlines having copied United and Delta in moving to a revenue-based loyalty program, American’s loyalty program has once again won out as the best elite program for the year.
It’s possible that American, the granddaddy of frequent flyer programs, benefits from residual feelings of goodwill towards a legacy program with a reputation of having been relatively generous in the past.
A key point: As of voting time, no flyer has yet lost status for failing to hit revenue requirements. (For details on the changes, see “How Earning Airline Elite Status Will Change In 2017” and a first-person report on how the changes affected his own status by Grant Martin, author of Skift’s business traveler newsletter.)
American may also benefit from a lack of competition for anything better. It’s not obvious to some frequent flyers which program would obviously and clearly be doing better for elites in the Americas than American.
A top gripe: elite perks have either degraded or gotten harder to obtain, on average.
In Europe, the most notable news is that low-cost carrier Norwegian’s program has displaced Air France-KLM’s one as most popular overall.
On the hotel front, the most remarkable development may be that Hyatt was displaced by Marriott as having the most popular program for elite (read: frequent) travelers. Marriott’s program is also undergoing changes as it aborbs, and learns from, its recently acquired hotel portfolio, Starwood.
