How we chose the best airline loyalty program

09.12.2024 - 12:15 / thepointsguy.com

Every year, the TPG Awards honor excellence in credit cards, loyalty programs and travel. Please click here to read more about our winner selection process and methodology for the 2024 TPG Awards.

The TPG Awards have honored the top travel brands, credit cards and loyalty programs since 2018. But this year, we've taken a new approach to several of the honors, leveraging data to select the winners of five awards.

For the first time ever, we used objective data to recognize the Best U.S. Airline Loyalty Program, including how you earn and redeem rewards, what elite status benefits you can enjoy and just how far a program can take you across the globe — through both its own network and via airline partnerships.

The six finalists for this award were:

It was a close battle between the top four programs, but only one winner could rise to the top in this year's TPG Awards.

And the winner is ... American Airlines AAdvantage.

Here's a closer look at our methodology and how AAdvantage won the Best U.S. Airline Loyalty Program award.

We scored these six major airline loyalty programs across four categories:

All raw data was converted into a scaled score from zero to 10 and then weighted according to our proprietary formula, with each category making up 25% of the final score.

Related: Best airline credit cards

With a total score out of 100, the final rankings were as follows:

1. American Airlines AAdvantage: 70.98

2. United MileagePlus: 69.47

3. Delta SkyMiles: 63.29

4. Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan: 62.02

5. Southwest Rapid Rewards: 52.68

6. JetBlue TrueBlue: 49.02

American Airlines AAdvantage just edged out United MileagePlus, while Delta SkyMiles took third, just ahead of Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan.

American flies to more domestic airports than any other U.S. airline, with an impressive 225 destinations served, according to the October 2024 Air Travel Consumer Report. The Fort Worth, Texas-based carrier also scored highly in the number of airline partners it has as a member of the Oneworld alliance, which includes British Airways, Qantas, Iberia and Cathay Pacific, as well as notable nonalliance airline partners like Etihad Airways and Hawaiian Airlines.

Using our data-backed monthly valuations, TPG values AAdvantage miles slightly higher than other U.S. airline currencies. The program's decision to retain a generous award chart for partner-operated redemptions has long made AAdvantage miles valuable. Not to mention, domestic flights start from just 5,000 AAdvantage miles. While this is not the lowest rate in the category, it is still a great deal for redeeming miles that are easy to earn.

AAdvantage particularly shone with its top-tier status perks for its AAdvantage Executive Platinum