22. March 2025
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My Loyalty Portfolio 2025

Florian Buechtingby Florian Buechting

After I shared my loyalty portfolio thoughts in March 2024 with you, it is time for an update. Especially the very surprising and short-notice changes by British Airways, transforming their Executive Club to a revenue-based The Club will require some adjustments to my long-term strategy. Here are my thoughts as of March 2025.

 

Airline Programs

A key part of my loyalty portfolio are airline programs. A lot has shifted and moved there during the last twelve months, making my strategy move forth and back. 

Lufthansa (Star Alliance) Miles & More

Status in 2024: Senator / Star Alliance Gold
Outlook in 2024: Reduce
Status March 2025: Frequent Traveler (FTL)
Trend 2025: Uncertain
Target Status early 2026: Frequent Traveler
Long-Term Target: Lifetime Frequent Traveler

I was rather unhappy with the performance of Lufthansa and their changes to Miles & More. This also lead to my farewell post about the Lufthansa Senator. However, the changes to the British Airways strategy make me think to improve the focus on the Germans again.

 

British Airways (OneWorld) Executive Club

Status in 2024: BA Gold / OneWorld Emerald
Outlook in 2024: constant
Status March 2025: BA Gold / OneWorld Emerald
Trend 2025: decreasing
Target Status early 2026: BA Silver / OneWorld Sapphire

What I wrote in my Senator farewell post about Lufthansa could now be partially recycled for a post about British Airways. Their announcement changing their strategy towards a revenue based approach hit me hard. It would require to invest more than four times the money into my gold tier. This is simply unrealistic. Thus, I feel that I will drop in the near future at most to silver level, maybe even lower.

 

KLM / Air France (SkyTeam) Flying Blue

Status in 2024: Gold / SkyTeam Elite Plus
Outlook in 2024: constant to raising
Status March 2025: Platinum / SkyTeam Elite Plus
Trend 2025: constant to raising
Target Status early 2026: Platinum
Long-term Target: Platinum for Life

SkyTeam are the winners of the loyalty schemes for me in 2024. I felt very well treated and respected whenever there was trouble. Furthermore, the roll-over structure of the Flying Blue scheme helps me a lot to have a stable outlook. Finally, the Lifetime Platinum status at the French-Dutch airline group might turn out to become the first lifetime status I achieve. I shared my posting about my recent mileage run in January 2025, which is a key factor in this planning.

 

Icelandair Saga Club

Status in 2024: Blue / None
Outlook in 2024: Positive Outlook
Status March 2025: Blue / None
Trend 2025: Stable
Target Status early 2026: Blue / None

There is still a thought of becoming Icelandair Silver tier one day, just for fun. At the moment, it is unrealistic. Despite trouble on my recent December 2024 trip with them, I really like the Nordic airline. They could become more important for US travel in the future.

 

Hotels

With over 100 hotel nights per year, the hotel “frequent sleeper” programs more and more become a key factor in my portfolio, especially due to the unsteady reliability by airline programs in recent past.

 

Hilton Honors

Status in 2024: Diamond
Outlook in 2024: slightly decreasing
Status March 2025: Diamond
Trend 2025: key program
Target Status early 2025: Diamond
Long-Term Target: Lifetime Diamond

Upgrades, free breakfast (or, at least, meal credit in the US) – I really like Hilton and their Hilton Honors program. I will soon approach half of the nights I need to obtain their Lifetime Diamond status. Nonetheless, there are still some ten years ahead to achieve that.

 

GHA Discovery

Status in 2024: Titanium
Outlook in 2024: Increasing volume of stays
Status March 2025: Titanium
Trend 2025: stable with positive outlook
Target Status early 2026: Titanium

GHA Discovery could have been a big winner this year – if only there were not these issues with integrating NH Hotels. I described them a bit in my recent NH Hotel Dresden Neustadt review. I hope they solve these things – stays like my Kempinski Budapest night in late 2023 have been really great experiences. I would love to have more of them. A very recent stay in the Netherlands makes me feel that things are finally sorted out – the number of GHA stays could thus increase very soon.

 

Accor ALL

Status in 2024: Accor ALL Gold
Outlook in 2024: decreasing
Status March 2025: Accor ALL Gold
Trend 2025: constant
Target Status early 2026: Accor ALL Gold

Parting my ways with Accor or going with the French? I decided to buy bonus nights by a loyalty card and defend my Accor ALL Gold status. I am overall very pleased with them and their dense network of hotels, especially in Europe. Their perks for status customers are good.

 

Deutsche Hospitality H-Rewards

Status in 2024: Silver
Outlook in 2024: increase possible
Status March 2025: Gold
Trend 2025: increase possible
Target Status early 2025: Gold

What’s Air France and KLM on the aviation side is Deutsche Hospitality in overnights. I am not sure what made me become Gold status member in their scheme. However, I decided to defend that status and had some really good experience. The IntercityHotel Dubai Al Jaddaf Waterfront was a downer, though. Look forward to have some nice stays with them this year again.

 

Choice Hotels

Status in 2024: Member
Outlook in 2024: Constant, positive outlook
Status March 2025: Member
Trend 2025: Decreasing
Target Status early 2026: Member

Integration is a key topic for Choice Hotels as well. I like the brand. Some of my stays were not top notch, but very reliable. Unfortunately, while Choice tends being a good option in North America, they just do not manage to integrate their Scandinavian hotels, which would be very attractive to me (and likely would also lead to a higher status level).

 

Rail

I am indeed a rail nerd. I also improved my Rides on Rail coverage significantly in 2025. The only loyalty scheme I follow in that transportation space are the Germans, though.

 

Deutsche Bahn BahnBonus

Status March 2024: bahn.bonus Gold
Outlook March 2024: struggle to keep
Status March 2025: bahn.bonus Gold
Trend March 2025: keep
Target Status early 2026: Gold

My bahn.bonus Gold status, granting access to the German rail lounges, helps me a lot while traveling. Even though you cannot deny the frequent delays by Deutsche Bahn, I overall really like their service. I should keep my status level there, definitely. It will be a bit of a challenge, though.

 

Car Rentals

2024 has not been a too intense year in regards of car rentals to me. I try to move more and more trips to rail and other public transport. Nonetheless, rental car companies are important in my travel portfolio.

 

Hertz

Status in 2024: Five Star
Outlook in 2024: Decreasing
Status March 2025: Five Star
Trend 2025: Slightly decreasing
Target Status early 2026: Five Star

Especially the huge difference nowadays between bookings at the rental car companies directly and using travel agency rates make it more and more difficult to me to keep status even at my key rental car company, Hertz. It’s a bit of a shame, I still really love their service, especially in the United States.

 

Sixt

Status in 2024: Platinum (linked to Lufthansa Senator)
Outlook in 2024: decreasing in 2025
Status March 2024: Platinum
Trend 2024: decreasing
Target Status early 2025: lower

My high status at Sixt was linked to the Lufthansa Senator status – thus, my status there will fade. I am still very pleased with Sixt bookings I had so far. Let’s see where this one is finally ending up.

 

Miles and Status

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

 

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