Skift Take
While it's fairly straightforward to quantify the value of a loyalty program in terms of "payback," that doesn't account for all the other special perks and experiences that travelers may value.
For the second consecutive year, Wyndham Rewards topped the annual Hotel Reward Payback Survey conducted by travel consulting firm IdeaWorks Company.
In its survey, IdeaWorks concluded that Wyndham Rewards returned, on average, 16.7 percent reward value for every dollar spent on a hotel, up from last year's 13.6 percent reward value. This means that for every $100 spent on a hotel room rate, a Wyndham Rewards member gets an average "reward payback" of $16.70.
To compile the data for the CarTrawler Hotel Reward Payback Survey, IdeaWorks sent 1,350 reward queries for six global hotel loyalty programs, noting the lowest reward price in points and its corresponding room price in U.S. dollars during the month of August for reservations spanning August through February.
Following Wyndham Rewards in ranking was Marriott Rewards, which retained its second-place ranking from last year. In 2015, Marriott Rewards topped the survey with an average reward payback of $9.40 for every $100 spent. In 2016, that number was 9 percent, and this year, it dropped to 8.8 percent.
Marriott Rewards was followed this year by Hilton Honors (7.5 percent), Best Western Rewards (7.4 percent), IHG Rewards Club (6.7 percent), and Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) (5.4 percent).
Although Marriott acquired Starwood in 2016, for the purposes of this survey, the two programs were treated as separate entities and the fact that you can link points between the two was not considered.
The survey also examined the relative value of each of the points for each program. For example, one SPG Starpoint is worth about $0.023 while one Hilton Honors point is worth about $0.005, meaning that it generally costs 2 SPG Starpoints for every dollar spent at a hotel, and 15 Hilton Honors points for every dollar spent at a hotel.
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