U.S. News Names Best Hotel Rewards Program for 2025. We Find Out Why

Glenn: Hey, everybody. Hospitality, friend. Glenn here. Listen, we already know gives you the power to profit, but now they’re giving you more actionable insights to drive that profitability. Do me a favor. Take a moment and check out Hotel Datacom. You’re getting set for budget season, right? And this new benchmarking data is going to help compare your hotel’s performance for the rest of 2025 and into 2026. Please check out HotelData.com or the classic Acatabl.com. Have a great day and enjoy the show! Hey everybody, it’s your hospitality. Friend Glenn here. Excited because I’ve got a report. Because U.S. news has announced their best travel reward programs for 2025 and 2026. And, hey, you know, I’m staying in hotels all year long, I think 150 nights last year. So this is a very important thing for me. So we’re going to get to the bottom of it today. So I got with us Elizabeth von Tur. She’s a senior travel editor over at U.S. News and World Report, one of my favorite newspaper publication magazines from back in the day. Elizabeth. It’s one of those publications that said, maybe I want to get into journalism. So that’s pretty awesome. How are you today?

Elizabeth: I’m great. Thank you. Thank you for the compliments. It’s great to hear.

Glenn: Yeah, it’s so exciting for me personally to to talk with you. All right. So what are the hallmarks of a great travel rewards program in the hotel business? Before we reveal the number one person who already already knows, since it’s probably in the description. But let’s try to keep the prize.

Elizabeth: Absolutely. So just to start off, U.S. News and World reports, best hotel rewards programs in particular are really geared to the everyday traveler. So, Glenn, 150 nights in hotel rooms. Probably not for you, but you know what? They’re still grabbing.

Glenn: For me because I’m not the everyday travel. I’m only traveling every other day. Tops.

Elizabeth: Really great point. But really, for those who are either, you know, just getting started in their loyalty journey or maybe looking to change programs after, you know, some changes have been made. So with that in mind, what we look for the most is how easy it is for a member to earn a free night or flight with that program. That is the biggest thing we look for. That’s 45% of the score in our ranking.

Glenn: That makes sense. And Elizabeth, I’ll say right now customers are looking for value and they want right here, right now, rewards a lot of the times, even as they might be aspiring for that vacation sometime next year with the family.

Elizabeth: Absolutely. Right now we do also factor in additional benefits. I know everyone loves the perks. You know, the room upgrades the early checking and all of that. So we factored those in and how how quickly you can earn those perks with the program. And then we take a look at the network size and coverage to.

Glenn: All right. So choice privileges claim the number one spot for 20 2526. What is the fundamentals there that made them come up on top for you and your readers?

Elizabeth: Yes. So as I mentioned, you know, the ease of earning a free night with choice is very, very strong. So you’re going to stay on average about nine nights before you’re earning a free night. The average across all brands was 15 nights. So you’re really shaving off quite a few stays before you’re earning. Another great thing about choice is how attainable their perks are. So starting with just ten nights, you’re going to see benefits like early check in, late checkout, free room upgrades with other large brands. You’re not seeing those perks until 25 or even 40 nights, so it’s great for those everyday ones.

Glenn: It sure is. And we got Wyndham Rewards and World of Hike. Great to see World of High on there. They’re a real up and comer and I think people are taking notice of this company finally.

Elizabeth: Absolutely. And one of the best parts of World of Hyatt. They do such a good job of combining a lot of diverse brands. So they have, you know, the very luxurious Park Hyatt. And then the more entry level, you don’t see the huge fluctuations like you do at the other large brands. So it’s great for luxury stays, for sure.

Glenn: It sure is. And a quick note on that. Airlines Alaska number one for the 11th consecutive year it seems that’s no surprise there. Why can’t the other ones figure out what makes them best and try to top it.

Elizabeth: So Alaska mainly for their earning rate. So you’re earning based on miles. You’re flying. It is the only traditional miles based program left on our rankings. So all the other programs have gotten to how much you’re spending. So you’re taking that San Francisco to Newark flight a couple of times a year. You are racking up those miles. You’re in a 500, 500 mile minimum to no matter how short your flight. Wow. That’s the biggest factor.

Glenn: Yeah. That’s great. Yeah. And I’m finding that my airline now goes out of its way to punish me for buying my flights early, because I know I’m going to be at that conference in six months. So that’s a real darn shame. Elizabeth, thank you so much for being here. Yeah. But before you go, how can we learn more and find out all about us news and latest and travel?

Elizabeth: Absolutely. So visit our rankings at travel US News.com. You can see all the scores for the different categories we have and learn a lot more that way.

Glenn: Awesome. Well thank you so much. I really appreciate you you being here and I appreciate all of you for being here. Make sure that you download the audio version of this podcast, share it with your friends, like, subscribe, all that kind of stuff. I’m Glenn, we’ll see you next time right back here on No Vacancy.