Best hotel loyalty programs

Plus, this credit card comes without the hefty annual fee of many of its competitors. Users of Best Western Rewards can speed track their way to elite status with top-tier membership after just 5 nights or 3 valid stays.

Guests on this loyalty program can access free room upgrades, redeem points for reward stays and even gift complimentary nights to friends, family, or colleagues. The scheme partners with a host of international airlines and established car rental chains such as Avis, Budget, and Enterprise to simplify spending points. A fantastic feature of this hotel loyalty scheme is that your points will never expire.

Additionally, if you are an elite member of another hotel loyalty program, you can automatically bag the same tier of perks with Best Western thanks to their status match promise. Ultimately the best hotel rewards program is the one that most fits your needs either as an individual traveler or as an organization. As well as the best rates available, with our seamless integration, business travelers and travel managers can collect their loyalty points with ease.

To see how TravelPerk can streamline your corporate travel, request a demonstration from our team today. Categories Travel Management. Suggested articles. Best corporate hotel loyalty programs in Europe Travel Insights. The best airline loyalty programs worldwide Travel Insights Travel Management. Subscribe now to get all the latest updates, news and more, straight to your inbox!

Elite status gifting Hit 30 nights in the calendar year and you can gift Gold status to any member. If you hit 60 nights then you can gift Diamond status. Here are the overall results:. Starwood Preferred Guest takes the top spot with the best overall score.

In this particular analysis, the program excelled in a few notable categories, as it has the highest percentage of luxury properties and the most rewarding elite status program.

However, the program made up significant ground thanks to how valuable its points are, as TPG staffers have experienced at hotels like the St. Starpoints regularly top the list of our monthly point valuations , and for good reason. Wyndham Rewards clocked in at second place, just behind Starwood and well ahead of the next closest competitor. You can redeem just 15, points for a free night at any Wyndham property worldwide, from the cheapest Days Inn to the most expensive Wyndham Grand resort.

Third place was a neck-and-neck race between two formidable programs, but World of Hyatt edged out Hilton Honors.

This is quite impressive for Hyatt given their comparatively small portfolio of properties, with fewer than hotels and roughly 70, rooms. Hilton, by comparison, has more than 5, properties and , rooms worldwide. It also provides some fantastic Elite Status benefits like suite upgrades and guaranteed late checkout, and scored well in the Co-Branded Credit Card category.

Finally, Hilton also takes the top spot for Co-Branded Credit Cards, in large part due to the wide variety of current cards and new upcoming compelling options like the Aspire. As a result, be sure to consider whether this program is a desirable option for you given your typical travel patterns.

Marriott Rewards takes sixth place, with top marks for Geographic Spread thanks to locations in countries and solid performances in Co-Branded Credit Cards and Promotions.

We have Best Western Rewards in eighth which suffered due to low marks in the percentage of Luxury Properties and a comparatively small portfolio of hotels. Choice Privileges in ninth also hurt by having no true luxury brands and a comparatively less rewarding Co-Branded Credit Card. Lastly, Club Carlson in tenth yet another with few luxury properties and a small number of hotels. Enter the interactive tool below. The results for each of the 10 programs will then automatically recalculate so you can see which hotel program is best for you.

Keep in mind that the final rankings should be viewed through the lens of practicality. We hope that anyone who has made it this far recognizes that a hotel is far more than just a place to rest your head or relax by the pool, especially when you consider its loyalty program.

Our advice: We encourage TPG readers to sign up for any and all hotel loyalty programs. Of course, the hotel industry continues to evolve as program executives and property managers look to provide more rewarding structures while simultaneously delivering more customized experiences for guests — millennials demand just that. The Internet will also continue to play a major role in shaping hotel strategy, allowing chains and individual properties to gather mountains of data and target customers more effectively.

This has driven the rise of lucrative cross-industry partnerships. American and Hawaiian also performed well this year, though for very different reasons. Low-cost airlines Frontier and Spirit ranked predictably low, as these budget airlines offer cheap fares and little else. Some might be surprised to see United near the bottom of the list. Another result with a clear winner.

Radisson Rewards Americas notches its first win in , and with authority. You might not know much about this program, and you might be confused about its recent split from many international Radisson hotels. Most hotel brands got dinged for at least one category. Hyatt did well overall but got marked down for its high and frequent resort fees. Wyndham did well but suffered with a low score on elite status perks. Radisson was the only program that received above-average scores across every category.

The big shocker to many is likely Marriott Bonvoy , which was tied for last. Despite being one of the largest and most well-known programs among frequent travelers, its rewards program failed to shine in any category. Read our editorial guidelines for additional information. For an airline to be eligible, it had to be based in the U. We looked at the rewards rate, basic economy fares, elite rewards rate, pet policies, in-flight entertainment and the fee rate.

We rated each of these factors separately, then determined an overall rating based on the weighting described below. To determine the rewards rate, we multiplied the value of each mile by the earnings rate and then multiplied by Signing out of account, Standby Navigating hotel rewards programs can be a daunting task. Yet, for most travelers,…. Yet, for most travelers, it all boils down to two simple variables:. Boiling it down to this single number lets us directly compare hotel rewards programs to one another and determine which ones offer the best — and worst — value.

Our team at NerdWallet crunched the numbers to identify which hotel loyalty programs actually offer the best bang for your travel buck. This rate can help you determine the best hotel rewards programs. It also gave us a new way to think about which hotel provides the best loyalty program in Using data to determine these rankings means that we never know how they are going to shake out until the final spreadsheet is tabulated.

That means the final results are as much a surprise to us as they are to anyone. Of course, there are other important factors to consider when choosing a hotel and its rewards program, such as elite status perks and the quality of the hotels. But our rewards rate gives a simple snapshot of which hotel brands are actually offering good value on their core rewards product: points.