gleff

As you may have seen, voting has begun in the Frequent Traveler Awards.

Through October 15 you'll be able to cast your vote for the programs that are delivering the most value to their members. And we'll have an answer to the question of which programs the traveling public thinks are the best.

There are (6) categories:

• Best Promotion for Redemption (Airline & Hotel)
• Best Promotion for Earning (Airline & Hotel)
• Best Redemption Ability (Airline & Hotel)
• Best Elite Level (Airline & Hotel)
• Best Loyalty Credit Card
• Program of the Year (Airline & Hotel)

And (3) regions:

• Americas
• Europe and Africa
• Asia Pacific & Middle East

Each voter will select one region (airlines, for instance, are categorized by their home region) and then vote in each of the six award categories in each region. Five of the six categories will be given away separately to airline and hotel. Only credit card is combined, but then there are also excellent non- co-branded affinity cards like Diners Club and Membership Rewards so they're all combined into a single category.

Members will rank their top four programs in each category. Rather than just being about member turnout, who can generate the most votes, voters are asked to <I>compare</i> programs to each other in this way.

Already several hundred thousand voters have cast their ballots. So while this project is being brought to you by fellow Flyertalkers, it has taken on grand scale.

The Flyertalk members behind the effort are tommy777, xyzzy, and oliver2002 managing the business and technology side of things.. myself Chairing the Nominations committee working closely with sbm12, thezipper, Canarsie, rcs85551, and MileageAddict.

We've had great support from the programs, I know there's been some electioneering here on Flyertalk by Hyatt.. many members have likely seen e-mails from programs, I know I've gotten notices from US Airways and American, Starwood and Hilton and Priority Club, I've seen features on the Air Berlin, Alaska, and Lufthansa websites, it's even the lead currently on the Kingfisher King Club website.

So.. cast your ballot and cheer on your favorite programs.

And let us all know who you're voting for and why, you may just sway a large number of Flyertalkers to vote with you.

Meanwhile, the award ceremony will be held in Houston on November 4th. There will be a separate thread in CommunityBuzz for the event itself, it's one that many of your fellow Flyertalkers will be attending!

gleff

So here's the rub, I expect some of the voting to be pretty close. I voted in the Americas so am confining my comments there.

I'd say Hyatt should do well, they've really come on strong with improvements in their elite tier (first to roll out free internet, introduction of confirmed suite upgrades). Hyatt's also been most aggressive with earning bonuses, though Hilton and Priority Club have offered good free night promos (more stays required but longer expiry) and so has Starwood (limited to free weekend nights).

On the airline front I'd guess that American and United have the strongest elite top tiers but I wonder whether voters will be interested in the 100k mileage level or the elite programs overall, certainly at the bottom tier United does have an interesting offering in Economy Plus. But then whatever carrier has doen the best job in upgrading their elites should have a strong case.

For airline promotions the 2009 double eqm extravaganza is on display, UA nad AA both offered it for a full year. US offered it for a shorter period but offered redeemable miles in addition to the bonus eqm's. And then there were a sleuth of other promos out there....

Will SPG Amex remain the king of credit cards? Certainly innovative offerings out there in recent times. Thoughts?

wise2u

I would vote for anyone but SPG as Amex raised the annual fee on the CC and they added resort fees to a ton of thier properties basically charging for plat benifits. They have slipped below Hyatt IMO

fti

With all due respect, those are two reasons why many people like myself don't put much weight on these types of "awards." They become a contest of who can "get out the vote" more or who can stuff the ballot boxes more. And if "swaying" someone to vote for a certain program because you did is possible (I assume so, at least with some people, since you implied so), that leads to more degradation of the "awards."

The top vote getters will plaster their "award" all over their advertising, but is it really the 'best'? Not necessarily.

gleff

That's why we spent a good amount of time on the voting process. This is not simply 'who garners the most votes'. It's not 'rate your favorite program 1-10' either.

The voting in these awards has voters rank order programs. That means they need to compare programs with each other. And that goes a long way to solving the issue you raise.

It's not perfect but to my mind it's the best attempt out there.

FLgrr

I looked at it, but dont know the exact details of every program. So the winner is who got their members to vote, not the program that is the best. I think few, even Flyertalk members, can rate program against every program since we use the ones best for us and not each and EVERYONE. But someone that does use each program regularly would be the only one capable casting an educated vote.

Jenbel

It's pretty frustrating the geographical split of the voting. As someone living in Europe, I have memberships in US and European programmes - but apparently, I cannot assess European against US programmes, all my choices are to do with European airlines only. Which is ridiculous - apparently I know more about and am more able to assess Ukraine International Airlines than I do American Airlines

I gave up in disgust when I realised this, without completing the voting. Sorry, not worth my time being constricted by false choices, it's not an accurate reflection of how I rate programmes.

(And there are gaps in things like credit cards - no BD mastercard, or AA UK AMEX).

Moomba

+1 when I realised my choices were restricted to Euro programmes I closed the browser

fti

With all due respect, I stand behind my comments. Very few people will be able to intelligently rate/rank four airlines/hotels/car rental companies/etc.

And the geographic limitations imposed are severely limiting. As an example, I have a membership in CX's program, but I have no option to rate that at all.

A great example of limitations and who considers what is "best" is the SPG AmEx. Many Flyertalkers love this card and have for years. Even when a DO leader proved to us participants how another card was WAY better than SPG AmEx for flight benefits, the SPG AmEx still won Freddies. Why? Popularity. People really didn't take the time to learn how good the benefits were from this other card (that has since been greatly devalued).

In the end, it will be a combination of which company does the best marketing and a popularity contest. It can hardly be avoided. But I applaud the attempt.

gleff

Jenbel, sorry to hear that you were frustrated. I admit, I'm a member of programs in Europe, and also in Asia. And I wanted to vote in all regions myself.

We decided that the Americas and European markets are decidedly different, and the programs are as well, and it didn't make sense to have one giant world for the voting but to maintain regions as the Freddies had done. And we could have bumped up our voting numbers if we had allowed ballots to be cast by anyone in whatever regions they wished. But we wanted folks to declare themselves most interesed in a single region, there's a sense in which the ballots have more meaning that way. Most people aren't experts in everything. There are a handful of us on Flyertlak, to be sure, but this is meant to reflect the broadest opinions of frequent travelers so the situation that you and I are in is somewhat unique.

I may make the argument to the committee next year that people ought to be permitted to vote in more than one region, but I am pretty sure we'll still keep the region concept. And that will mean not being able to rank Delta vs. British Airways.

We did limit to one card per program, and only cards affiliated programs in the region. That may have ultimately been a shortcoming but also makes the choices more manageable. Tradeoffs and judgment calls which we'll learn from, though my hunch is that this time through they were the right ones.

You actually get to choose which region you wish to vote for programs in.

gleff

Any voting scheme will reflect mass opinion, in this case the opinions of frequent travelers.

That's different from saying that there's a 'best' in some obejectively true sense.

The awards will speak to what the traveling public believes is the best.

But that's ok, and that's what you want even, because these values are very much subjective so what counts is how programs provide members with what matters most to them.

And because of that, I may well personally disagree with the Frequent Traveler Awards voters. And I'll think that i know best of course. But I'll also have to respect the voters as well, for telling us what they believe is meeting their needs.

fti

That is where I am not sure you are correct. If various companies market to their customers a 'get out the vote' campaign (which you have said is already happening), it could end up being more a popularity contest based on which airline/hotel/car rental company/etc. got more of its customers to vote. If someone already is a frequent customer of Hyatt, and Hyatt floods their frequent guests with a 'get out the vote' campaign, the voting is biased. So it could end up being not what the traveling public believes is best but is skewed because one company got more of its faithful customers to vote for them.

Obviously, if someone is a high level elite with a certain airline/hotel/etc. most likely they are going to vote highly for that company. If not, they probably would be using a different company!

Firewind

As I have elsewhere, I congratulate Gary for getting this going and promoting it. It's bound to be a winner. That said, I suggest...

A vote for the current Southwest RR program could be the most meaningful one, this year. Those close to Southwest in that forum have been kicking around the leaked "RR 2.0", which will be radically different (variable earning specifically related to dollars spent, and variable redemption "prices" specifically tied to the going price of a ticket on the desired freebie) from what may be the program currently best-leveraged in our favor. A vote for the current program this year would be a statement for programs to be more, rather than less, generous, and also a push back vs. the concept that they seem suicidally driven to. Especially if "RR 2.0" is implemented at year-end 2010, and Southwest ends up fighting for last in the 2011 Frequent Traveler rankings.

I believe other airlines contemplating the concept also will take notice of the vote.

And making the hinted change, and our vote, even more important: Southwest's recent purchase of AirTran.

To be sure, Southwest does't fly internationally or offer international awards, has no first class or assigned seats, and isn't cheap anymore. Thus, many won't fly them, or would hold their noses at voting for Rapid Rewards. But I believe that this is an opportunity as no other to speak with a collective voice, and to push back against the concept that JetBlue, for example, has unsuccessfully implemented.

gleff

I've actually been (pleasantly) surprised, most of the programs seem to be promoting it, at least those I follow and I'm surprised by the promotion by ones that I don't.

That counters the popularity contest view, e.g. on the hotel front it's certainly been promoted by Marriott and Hilton and Starwood and Priority Club and Hyatt, I'd have to go back and check to see if someof the smaller programs have as well.

And since the winner isn't determined by most number of votes, it's harder for a popularity contest to drive this. I suppose if you got out more than half the vote and all those voters you turned out voted for you as #1, then sure that could help. But even that might not be enough, as the folks who voted for other programs might not vote for yours on average even in second place!

We really did spend a great deal of time on the voting mechanism, deep into the literature on the subject. Is this a perfect reflection of the will of the masses? It's not, any voting system has that problem, just look around at the world's domcracies

But the scale of the project -- as I said earlier, literally millions of votes have already been cast (!) -- will do a lot to offset some of the imperfections.

It's about as good a mechanism as there seems to be out there, and certainly an improvement over 'vote for one program', 'rate your favorite program 1-10', over a smaller voting project, or over a committee of self-appointed experts.

Though we're absolutely open to revisiting and revising the mechanism in future years, there are certainly smart people here on Flyertalk and we'll take any specific suggestions into account in discussions going forward.

Best,
gary

UA Fan

My fav card is the SPG, my fav FFP is CO, US and AA in that order. Hotel program - choice.