Unusual, lesser known travel loyalty programs
 

What are some of the less talked about loyalty programs that can provide value to those that use them? I know that Greyhound has a loyalty program...are there others like any of the car ride-sharing or home sharing programs?

Any that you like or use?

Well, practically any store that is a chain has some kind of loyalty program, so I assume you're talking about ones for travel only.

Sometimes smaller brand hotels will have their own loyalty program, like Kimpton and Executive Hotel, but I don't really think they're worth it because there are so few hotels. Amtrak Rewards has a forum here, but I don't think they're very popular, though they do exist. Also, Expedia has a program that I used to use where you get points for each booking and once you accumulate enough points you can get a coupon for $25 or $50 off the hotel, but now since most hotels do a price match it's not really worth it to book via expedia most of the time.

Raffles hotels has had two somewhat unpublished levels.

LHW used to be decent and started way back in the 1980s.

OMNI hotels gives benefits to everyone who is a member.

The Kempinski program also seems to give benefits to every member, namely free WiFi, even if you sign up upon arrival.

For some reason, I signed up for a program called "ThanksAgain", which gives you points for cc use when parking at the ATL airport, plus other airport retailers. After a year, I have accumulated 461 points that were transferred to my AA account. My thought was to use this to generate a little activity to keep accounts active. So when I use my credit card for parking, I get the normal cc points plus another point that I have allocated to my AA account. They have other partners including AeroMexico,Alaska Airlines, Fiesta Rewards.Frontier,Hilton HHonors, JetBlue, Southwest, and United.

Glad you asked... I need to figure out how to change the target airline... its not obvious. There are likely similar programs around other parking companies in other airports I would suspect.

I'm sort of liking the LHW program. It has its pros and cons. The good hotels are good. We have been upgraded to a junior suite everywhere. The amenities at check-in are nice, though they vary by property. OTOH, we tend to stay for an average of five days wherever we go, and the program is more geared toward people who stay a night or two, then move on. You are given a free breakfast, and some places have an awesome breakfast, whereas others are just a step above a continental breakfast.

The interesting thing about it is that it's not based on number of nights stayed each year, ultimately, so if we don't like the LHW hotels in a city, we stay somewhere else. Really liking that.

the little tiny bakery around the corner from us has a loyalty program; buy 10 loaves and get one free. ;)

Unusual, lesser known travel loyalty programs
 

Uber has their own loyalty program. You can be a VIP after 100 uber rides. All it does it get you access to VIP drivers - guaranteed to have a 4.8 rating or higher. Only available in a few cities.. But great in NYC where you get someone who knows short cuts vs someone who has only just started driving in the city

Really?? That's awesome. I use Uber anyway and I'm pretty far from 100 rides, but I'll get there eventually, which'll be pretty great. I hope they have VIP drivers in Philly.

Uber is also a crossover reward option with SPG - they give you 1 SPG point for each point spent on Uber, which isn't really a loyalty program of its own but almost like Uber having a loyalty program - it just gives you points for something besides Uber rides.

Unusual, lesser known travel loyalty programs
 

Airport remote parking. Pre-Flight, The Parking Spot and others let you collect and redeem points.

BoltBus has a pretty simple program.

Orbitz has a credit back program, and also provides a code for free TSA Pre after 12 hotel stays.

i remember back around 2001, I think it was, when someone here came up with a scheme where you could transfer CO miles to Amtrak Guest Rewards and then to UA at 1:1:1. It was such a good idea that it got the thing restricted and eventually shut down, but I managed to get about 275K through the pipe before it did. That was useful because I used the UA miles on NZ and put together some good south Pacific trips (really leveraging stopovers) circa 2005 and 2006.

UA would merge with CO, of course, but that came much later and it's just not the same.

I still get occasional mailings from Amtrak Guest Rewards to this day, even though the account has zero balance and no activity on Amtrak.

My favorite airport parking lot, Colonial Parking (PHL) has a pretty good frequent parker program. It saves me a fair amount--though sadly, not as much as it used to save me when I was still working and parked there constantly on the company's dime!

Parking Spot - I haven't paid for personal vacation parking in a long, long time. The rewards are actually pretty good, something like 1 free day for every 6 days parked. A parking forum has come up several times but TB doesn't seem to like it.

Our local supermarket has a program that earns gas discounts - nets out to about a 4% return on spend, better than cash back credit cards.

Regions Bank (Southeast, Midwest) has a program called Relationship Rewards. I was recently helping a friend evaluate a large balance of points he has in this program and they can be used to book travel through a portal a la TYP or UR, but there are no transfer partners. The earning structure is not great; $1 per point using their credit card and some small bonuses for using Regions services. An earning table is here.

Just knocking around their portal, the redemption rates were OK for hotels both domestically and in the UK. I priced a few Hilton hotels in the London area in May and the RR redemption rate was about 10% less point-for-point than Hilton points for the same properties and dates.