These Are the Best Airline Loyalty Programs in the World—and One U.S. Airline Came Out on Top

16.09.2024 - 23:02 / afar.com / Pete Buttigieg

Navigating the world of airline loyalty programs can be extremely challenging. Understanding mileage programs involves confusing tables and complex math for how flights, status, and other perks are accessed. It gets even more complicated when carriers suddenly change how points are earned and redeemed or devalue them. To help take some of the guesswork out of which companies offer the best value for travelers, Point.me, a points and travel reward search platform, just released its inaugural ranking of 62 global airline loyalty programs.

The list is based on nine quantitative and qualitative factors determined by the site’s 55 airline experts, with the most heavily weighted areas being ease of earning miles (25 percent), redemption rates (20 percent), availability on partner airlines (15 percent), and ease of booking (12.5 percent). The company explicitly did not consider status benefits—they wanted the rankings to reflect the best program for casual fliers.

“Getting real value from airline loyalty points is often significantly harder for passengers than it needs to be,” said Adam Morvitz, CEO of Point.me in a press release. Morvitz noted that rankings resulted from “deep data-led insight from our reward search engine” combined with in-house knowledge and expertise.

The timing of this report comes just days after the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) announced a federal consumer protection probe aimed at airline rewards programs.

“Points systems like frequent flyer miles and credit card rewards have become such a meaningful part of our economy that many Americans view their rewards points balances as part of their savings,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement about the probe. “These programs bring real value to consumers, with families often counting on airline rewards to fund a vacation or to pay for a trip to visit loved ones. But unlike a traditional savings account, these rewards are controlled by a company that can unilaterally change their value.”

The DOT is hoping to ensure that the flying public is “getting the value that was promised to them, which means validating that these programs are transparent and fair.”

Air France and KLM’s Flying Blue program is the top-ranking program, according to Point.me. Thanks to recent adjustments to its loyalty strategy, the Flying Blue program has “great redemption rates, extensive partnerships that make it easy to earn miles (even without ever boarding an Air France or KLM flight), and flexible routing rules that make it easy to reach destinations worldwide,” Point.me stated in a release about the new ranking. It also noted that points are easily transferable: “Consumers can transfer points from all of the major credit card