Top 15 Hotel Loyalty Programs

After 20 years working in the travel industry, and 15 years writing about it, Tim Winship knows a thing or two about travel. Follow him on Twitter @twinship.

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In its latest Hotel Loyalty/Rewards Program Satisfaction Report, J.D. Power reports that travelers are happier with their frequent-stay programs than they were in 2014. On its 1,000-point scale, overall ratings increased from 676 in last year’s report to 701 this year.

The J.D. Powers study ranks programs on their performance in five areas, which are importance-weighted as follows: account maintenance/management (23 percent); ease of redeeming points/miles (22 percent); ease of earning points/miles (18 percent); reward program terms (16 percent); and customer service (5 percent).

Those weightings are likely to give some travelers pause. Is account maintenance really more important than ease of redeeming and earning points? That’s debatable, to put it politely.

With that caveat, the scores, from highest to lowest, are as follows:

727 – Delta Privilege
727 – Hilton HHonors
722 – Best Western Rewards
721 – IHG Rewards
717 – Marriott Rewards
701 – La Quinta Returns
692 – Club Carlson
687 – Hyatt Gold Passport
685 – Fairmont President’s Club
675 – Drury Gold Key Club
674 – Wyndham Rewards
667 – Choice Privileges
661 – Starwood Preferred Guest
657 – Omni Select Guest
642 – Red Roof Redicard

Also calling into question the survey’s methodology and findings are the glaring discrepancies between some of this year’s results and last year’s. For example, last year, Best Western Rewards ranked at the very bottom, but this year it’s near the top. There have been no substantive changes to the program during that period, so what’s behind the seesawing result?

While the J.D. Power reports may be the gold standard for customer-satisfaction data in the automotive industry, their hotel-industry reports should be viewed with a bit more skepticism. They’re intriguing, but hardly definitive.

Reader Reality Check

How do the J.D. Power findings accord with your experience of the hotel programs?

This article originally appeared on FrequentFlier.com.

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