With statuses getting harder and harder to achieve and benefits getting worse and worse, many passengers are wondering if it is still worthwhile to stay loyal to an airline or hotel group and if it is not better to ” regain their independence”.
A reasoning that makes sense but to which some nuances must be added.
More elite members, fewer benefits
First of all, it is important to understand how we got to this point and it is quite simple.
First of all there are more and more “elite” members in the loyalty programs which is due to a number of things.
There is of course a mechanical increase: the more people who travel, the more of them will reach the highest status.
There is a post-covid effect with people who wanted to make up for lost time and who for some have reached a high status for the first time, especially since the status thresholds have been lowered during this period. Which leads us to the next point.
We also have the latest impacts of COVID-related commercial measures with programs that have in some cases greatly extended the statuses of people who were not traveling and who might have lost their status under normal circumstances. The effect of these measures is beginning to disappear, but in 2022 the effects were felt at the maximum level: no one lost their status and eventually people who did not have one acquired one. Discounted status = degraded program!
And then there are plenty of ways to get status without traveling much. Some airlines and hotel groups allow their highest status members to gift one to a family member or friend. There are also status matches that allow you to obtain a status in a program competing with the one you are a member of. Less known in France but common in the USA, it is very easy to obtain a status thanks to the possession of a co-branded or not credit card (an Amex Platinum gives you the 2nd best status on a large number of loyalty programs). Finally, there are partnerships between programs (Accor and Qatar Airways for example or Marriott and United).
Also keep in mind that some airlines offer lifetime status, as well as some hotels. Members who achieve this will no longer lose their status!
In short, there are more and more elite members, which makes it more difficult to deliver the promised benefits.
When you have more Elite guests than available suites, upgrades are complicated. Airport and hotel lounges are becoming overcrowded. And even simple things like priority boarding lose their relevance (take a Zurich Paris on Swiss, there are more people in the priority line than in the normal line).
More members and benefits that are not scalable at will, leads to an inexorable devaluation of the programs: less benefits, harder to obtain statuses, decreasing value of points/miles.
At a certain point it is logical that travelers say “what’s the point of being loyal?” because the cost/benefit ratio becomes questionable.
Not all statuses are equal
This may seem obvious, but it is important to remember that not all statuses are equivalent. From experience we believe that only the two highest statuses of each program are worthwhile, then the value of the others is more questionable. And sometimes even the second highest isn’t worth much.
So fighting for a Silver or Gold status at Accor (Gold that you can acquire for 90 euros….) or, a Silver at Air France, a Gold at Marriott…. has almost no interest.
Loyalty has a cost
Because, indeed, loyalty has a cost. Of course that of your flights and hotel nights but not only! Sometimes your favorite airline does not serve certain destinations or not direct. Your hotel chain is not located in your favorite vacation destination or where your biggest customer is located. And sometimes, at some point, their offer is more expensive or of lower quality than the competition.
In short, loyalty removes freedom and adds constraints.
So again, if it doesn’t get you to a status with significant benefits, it’s not worth it.
You can have the benefits of status without the status
There are two types of customers who are legitimately concerned about regaining their freedom from their loyalty program.
First of all, those who travel with strong budget constraints and tell themselves that if they can’t reach a valid status, they might as well choose the cheapest without a loyalty strategy.
On the other hand, there are passengers who do not have these constraints, either because their business travel policy is generous or because they belong to the “premium leisure” segment, those who even for their vacations and leisure only take premium.
When you travel all the time in business class, what is the point of having a status? None.
When you only take suites or premium rooms at the hotel what is the point of having a status? Almost none.
A priority pass or an Amex Platinum card will give you access to a large number of airport lounges regardless of your status or class of travel.
And again, some credit cards will give you status regardless of whether you travel or not.
Which loyalty strategy at TravelGuys
Since you often ask us this question, we will answer you but, obviously, our situation is our own and many of you will not recognise yourselves in it.
First of all, if we had to make trade-offs, we would leave airline loyalty programs but not hoteliers. Why would we do this? In our opinion, hotel programs provide more consistent benefits than airline programs. Provided you choose the right ones of course. At Marriott, upgrades are almost systematic for us (Titanium and Ambassador) while our friends at Accor, Platinum or Diamond, almost never have one. But it’s still better than in the airline industry where upgrades become non-existent and are usually the consequence of an operational context (overbooking, change of aircraft etc.) and not a benefit of the program: your status just helps you get priority if for some reason the airline has to upgrade people. Let’s put it another way: in hotels, an upgrade is a benefit that is promised and usually delivered, in air travel it is the result of a problem. A hotel upgrades you because it decides to, an airline because it can’t do otherwise.
Then? Things have changed since our first trips and our professional situation has fortunately evolved. We have gone from “a long-haul business from time to time” to “business always, even in medium-haul”.
Result: we don’t run after our air status like we used to. We pushed to the end at Air France because we were not far from obtaining a platinum status for life but it is more for not having “done all that for nothing” that we continued. Without the incentive of lifetime status, we would certainly have given up.
In Star Alliance we found an airline whose Gold is very very easily accessible, which credits very well the flights made on the partner airlines (with good rates and in all fare classes) and gives us everything we want: a star alliance gold status recognized by all the airlines of the alliance. The effort is minimal and again there is the promise of lifetime status after 10 years (well…5 now we are halfway there). But there again it is because the effort is minimal that we continue to play the game with pleasure. Yes, sometimes it is interesting to be on the loyalty program of an airline that you never fly with. It doesn’t work for hotels, but in the airline industry, within the same alliance, you can put loyalty programs in competition.
After a move has led Olivier to use British Airways and OneWorld much more than in the past but this is a coincidence rather than a deliberate strategy.
So as you understand it today we would be more in the camp of those who choose on a case by case basis according to the opportunitiesThe only thing holding us back a bit in a program logic is a Star Alliance program that requires almost no effort and will soon give us a lifetime status. If it was Miles&More from Lufthansa we would have already moved on.
However, the situation is different with hotels. My first concern at the beginning of the year is to think about keeping my Titanium at Marriott. Olivier is Titanium for life so this allows him to test other programs through Status Matches. Beside that we have a Gold at Accor that we hardly use, but that we have for really cheap so for the 3 nights that we spend per year at Accor the deal is good.
Today it is clear that we value hotel programs much more than airline programs, which are much more stingy.
But, and this is the case for many passengers, it is also the story of personal progression and evolution. At the beginning the programs bring us advantages that we cannot afford, then the situation evolves and we can choose. It is obvious that our strategies are the result of the way we have evolved and our careers and that if we were 25 years younger and starting out we might say something different.
Or, to put it another way, until we can one day say “we don’t care”, we have to give it a lot of importance for a while.
Finally, the only thing that keeps us playing the game (a little bit) is the lifetime status, always useful when for some reason we travel less or not in the way we would like.
Bottom line
To put it simply, let’s say that hotel programs are more interesting than airline programs and that you should prefer programs that offer you a lifetime status and/or statuses that are easy to achieve.
After that it’s up to you to see according to your context and your means but if you are not able to reach one of the two highest statuses of a program forget it and choose what suits you best in terms of quality or price on a case by case basis. And treat yourself to a business once in a while if you can, because even with a high status, air upgrades are a miracle, so don’t make it a goal.
Image : loyalty programs by Andrey_Popov via Shutterstock
