5. August 2026
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Who Treats Me Best? My Favorite Loyalty Schemes

Florian Buechtingby Florian Buechting

As you know from some of posts, I part of my travel planning is gaining loyalty miles and status. During a recent hotel stay, I asked myself which is my favorite loyalty program (in regards of travel). I look at the ease of gaining a certain status level as well as the benefits I receive. Likely, this post is not neutral and significantly depends on my personal preferences. Nonetheless, I feel that my thoughts could be interesting for you. I concentrated on those programs, which I indeed use a couple of times a year at least. Based on that, I skipped my experience with Sixt, for example (where my status is based in a credit card).

 

My Favorite Loyalty Programs

Here are my favorite loyalty programs, given in ascending order.

 

10th: British Airways The Club

Type of Travel:  Airline
Current Status:  Silver (2nd highest tier)

If I would have written this post three years ago, British Airways and their – at that time – Executive Club would have been on the other end of my ranking. A lot has changed since then – and thus I just put the program on run-off/hiatus for my mileage strategy. After some eight years of being very loyal to BA, I just could not stand it any more. Poor and too short notice communication, a transition to the updated The Club and technical issues overall limited my enthusiasm for the British. With American Airlines doing changes to their scheme, the award availability has become more limited as well – even though this is still one of the key perks of it

 

9th: IHG One Rewards

Type of Travel:  Hotels
Current Status:  basic member

I do have a certain history with IHG’s frequent sleeper programs. However, there haven’t been too many nights in recent past. This year, I will at least jump over the first status bar again, though. In the past, I did not really benefit from the program. There were very scattered upgrades and even converting points into free nights was not that easy. Maybe, I will judge differently in 2027. Let’s see.

 

8th: Accor ALL

Type of Travel:  Hotels
Current Status:  Gold (3rd highest status)

Since years, I have a rather steady number of stays with Accor, mostly leading to an Accor ALL gold status. I rather like the reliability of the hotel group than their loyalty program. You do have a chance for upgrades especially in Asia and the Middle East, but it rarely happens in Germany. The loyalty points can typically only be converted to hotel price reduction – there are a few special events (sports / culture), though. I like the Accor brands and some of their concepts very nicely suit my travel needs. Thus, I take the points and perks as a very welcome add-on.

 

7th: Hertz Gold

Type of Travel:  Rental Cars
Current Status:  Five Star (2nd highest level)

Hertz is my favorite rental car provider since a really long time. I really like the advantages of their program. The faster check-in at rental is really helpful, they also typically lower the deposit on your credit card, which can be handy. Upgrades are almost guaranteed if you are not in a country where the providers are very independent, e.g. in the U.A.E.. Especially the operations there lack a bit of transparency. While cars are shown as sold out on the global Hertz website, you can easily book them at the local one. Nonetheless, I like the service, get some free rental days here and there and appreciate the customer-company relationship.

 

6th: Icelandair Saga Club

Type of Travel:  Airline
Current Status:  Silver (2nd highest tier)

Rating Icelandair’s program comparably high might be rather surprising at first sight. For example, you can just use their Saga Points to reduce the cash price of a ticket, there are no award flights as such. However, there are some sweet spots on a second glance. First of all, the Silver level is rather easy to reach. You can also give the status to your spouse for a rather limited fee of a little over 100 Euro. And they give you an upgrade voucher for two legs per year. The Saga Club is definitely not a prime scheme, but it does have some nice advantages. By they way, if you reach Gold level, you have free parking at Keflavik Airport (KEF) – a really nice deal for locals.

 

5th: Lufthansa Group Miles & More

Type of Travel:  Airline
Current Status:  Senator (2nd highest status)

While my frequent flyer life began with the Germans, the recent years have rather been an up and down. Since this year, I am back at Senator status level. Both, the earning and the redemption of miles has become significantly more difficult in recent years. The status turned from a requalification every two years to an annual one. Apart from the Star Alliance Gold status, you do have some nice perks. Apart from fast lane check-in and security and the Lufthansa lounges, I especially like bypassing a few of the frequently changing additional booking fees, e.g. those for seat reservations. Let’s see how this relationship will develop in the next years – I still expect an up and down.

 

4th: Deutsche Bahn bahn.bonus

Type of Travel:  Rail Travel
Current Status:  Gold (2nd highest status)

I really like bahn.bonus, the frequent traveler and bonus program by Deutsche Bahn. I would love having more options to redeem their bonus points. However, having a reserved area in each long-distance train and 12 free drinks (including high price ones like gin and tonic) are a nice deal. Apart from that, the DB Lounges are maybe not the poshest of their kind, but they are reliable and offer you escaping from the typical train station hassle. Thus, I really enjoy my frequent travels with them.

 

3rd: Hilton Honors

Type of Travel:  Hotels
Current Status:  Diamond (now 2nd highest status)

Roughly half of my hotel nights during the last years took place in Hilton Hotels. It is also by far the hotel group most frequently discussed on my website. Thus, you expect that their program works out to me. The status can be reached with reasonable effort, benefits work out fine and additional points can be purchased rather easily. Upgrades work out rather frequently (where these are not mandatory to me anyway) and I love the free breakfast outside the US. The inconsistency of benefits between US and global hotels is one of the key reasons I did not even rate them higher, though.

 

2nd: Air France / KLM Flying Blue

Type of Travel:  Airline
Current Status:  Platinum (2nd highest status)

I really like Flying Blue. The status scheme is easy to understand and the roll-over of XP (status points) leads to a much better potential to plan ahead with Air France and KLM. You have to say that the redemption of miles is worse than at other airlines. However, since I reached their Platinum Level, I really love their added services, from operational upgrades at the airport, to proactive calls if something is going wrong. Thus, especially for intra-European travel in Economy Class, the airline group and their loyalty scheme.

 

My Favorite Program: GHA Discovery

Type of Travel:  Hotels
Current Status:  Titanium (highest status)

I just use my GHA Discovery status a couple of times a year. Nevertheless, I really enjoy it and appreciate the ease and benefits of the program. The Discovery Dollar bonus system might not be the most attractive scheme in the business. However, no hotel scheme leads to so many, often very valuable, reliable upgrades and service perks. As there are so many hotel chains in the Global Hotel Alliance (GHA) from Kempinski to basic stays, you typically manage to find the right spot.

 

The title picture of this post has been created by the use of A.I. (ChatGPT). I did not use AI writing this post, though.

 

Miles and Status

My topic Miles and Status deals with earning miles and loyalty programs:

 

Concerts (Last 12 Months)

Here are the concert reports I published during the last twelve months:

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