Top 15 Hotel Loyalty Programs

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?

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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.