The Roaming BoomersAmerica’s Best Travel Reward Programs & Benefits for 2014
Flyertalk calls itself the largest online travel community boasting over 540,0000 members. The day we visited their site, we found over 10,000 users currently online, over 1 million travel threads, and 22 million travel posts.
The site consists of four Flyertalk blogs (The Gate, The Hub, The Lobby, and The Tarmac); and forums to discuss miles and points, travel and dining, destinations, and a forum labeled community.
On March 5th, 2014, the site released the 3rd Annual Flyertalk Awards highlighting the world’s best travel reward programs, and the world’s best outstanding travel benefit. We thought the American travel rewards and benefits might be of interest to our readers, so we’ve highlighted them below for your consideration.
The Third Annual Flyertalk Awards
America’s Best Travel Reward Programs
| Fly: | American Airlines AAdvantage (Quality Score 7.51 out of 10) For the third straight year, AAdvantage is the clear choice of FlyerTalk’s airline affinity program experts in the Americas. United is the runner-up, followed by the smaller Air Canada, Alaska Airlines and Jetblue programs. |
| Stay: | Starwood Preferred Guest (Quality Score 6.81 out of 10) Also winning for the third time in as many years, SPG outdistances Hilton HHonors despite each program garnering the exact same number of votes! The way those 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th-place votes are distributed, however, heavily favors Starwood. All those 1st-place votes matter! |
| Drive: | Hertz Gold Plus Rewards (Quality Score 7.69 out of 10) Hertz has won every category in every region of the Car Rental segment since the FlyerTalk Awards began, here outdistancing National Emerald Club. Will the total domination continue? |
America’s Best Outstanding Individual Travel Benefit
| Fly: | American Airlines AAdvantage – EXP systemwide upgrades (Quality Score 6.46 out of 10) With the same benefit nominated, we see the same result three years running. FlyerTalk members love their systemwide EXP upgrades even more than Southwest’s lack of award redemption fees or JetBlue’s never-expiring TrueBlue points. |
| Stay: | Marriott Rewards – Concierge lounge access (Quality Score 6.90 out of 10) Three different champions have been crowned for Outstanding Hotel Benefit in the Americas. Marriott Rewards Concierge Lounge takes home the 2014 trophy in a barn-burner, with Starwood nipping at their heels just a hundredth of a point off the pace! Congrats to Marriott on their first FlyerTalk Award. Keep it up! |
| Drive: | Hertz Gold Plus Rewards – Gold service (Quality Score 7.94 out of 10) Well, look at that — it’s Hertz over national. Four down, two to go… |
If you would like to view the complete worldwide travel rewards award list, and results discussion boards click here.
What are your thoughts? Is your travel reward program listed?
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