I was scratching my head about this category as well. All the complaints I've heard about DC lately and they win first place. And even worse is the Mariott Visa got second place. I hear the Mariott CC is one of the worst out there (with the exception of charging actual Mariott stays to it). The SPG Amex is far superior to either of the above cards IMHO and the HH Amex is not far behind that.

^ Totally agree. I do not understand for the life of me why Diner's Club remains in the top five. A yield of less than 1 FF mile per dollar, plus a high annual fee. The only value that DC has really delivered in the past few years is for people who tend to trash rental cars. And you could kind of argue that the primary-insurance feature is outside the scope of the Freddies and Club Rewards.

Marriott moving into #2...while I don't agree (like you, I'd go SPG-HH as my 1-2), I think they've made a unique offering and are rightfully the top Visa/MC product out there for people who use Marriott on a semi-frequent basis. It's the annual recurring benefits that make this card valuable: the free night certificate plus the crediting of 15 room-nights to your account. This is better than the standard "you're Silver as long as you hold the card" rule in that it brings Gold status down to 35 "real" room-nights, which is more in line with other programs' comparable levels.

For someone with no use for Marriott, I would guess that either the US Airways card with no fee, 1.5 miles/$, and a quasi-elite status (you can use F check-in, I think) or the United card that earns up to 10k or 15k(?) EQM's per year would be tops for an MC/Visa.

Randy theorized that the voters for DC were the DC cardholders who remained after the changes. Namely, those members for whom DC still represented a good value. With airline partnerships curtailed this year, there won't be a 10th win for DC next time.

At the risk of sounding un-democratic, I'd probably respect the Freddies a lot more if a small, independent board of voters selected them.

We, the great unwashed masses of the traveling world, cannot handle the responsibility. We proved that pretty loud and clear this year.

I'm being serious: it's not that we're stupid, it's simply that we don't interact with all of the programs. There were...what...20 hotel programs listed and probably even more airline programs listed for most geographies? I'll admit it: when I vote, I'm completely and exclusively comparing SPG, MR, and HH. For airlines, I'm comparing UA, US, and AA. I'm totally ignorant of anything that, say, Kimpton Hotels or Alaskan Airlines does.

I know the "value vote" is intended to counter any advantage that a massive program has vs. a little one. But even that is a somewhat arbitrary number. How can I assess the value of a Marriott Travel Package on a scale of 1 to 10 if I have no idea what 15 of the other 20 programs would give me across that same number of stays/nights? I mean, I think it's a 9. Or is it an 8? You think it's a 10? Who's right? We both are? What was your methodology to determine it was a 10? Mine to determine it was a 9?

Instead, I'd rather see a board do the voting. That's how most prestigous award are done...sometimes it's a large board (e.g., the Heisman or the Oscars), sometimes it's a small one (Hall of Fame Veterans' Committee). But in any case, letting Joe Sixpack vote is usually a bad thing.

We simply can't handle it.

Does DC still provide int'l lounge privileges? That was a good benefit, but now that the various alliances provide that free to mid-tier elite members, it's less useful.

Personally, it's been awhile since I've had a DC card (I think I signed up for a promo about 5 years ago). Surprised they haven't even solicited me since the change to Mastercard. I've got the Starwood AMEX card and, other than the modestly annoying $30 annual fee, I'm quite happy with it (although I now charge my gas & groceries to one of those new 5% rebate cards).

Yes. If you use them a lot, or if you use the rental car primary insurance a lot, $95 is still a good deal. Otherwise it's just an overpriced Mastercard. The voters were pretty clearly heavy users of the car insurance and lounges.

I'm surprised they haven't solicited me, either. Oddly enough, I don't get anything from Citibank, while I'm barraged by every other bank on the planet with credit card offers.

I had Diner's for years, as they were our primary corporate card. I used the card extensively for both biz and personal expenses - about $60k a year - because at the time I felt Club Rewards was the best thing going. I had to fly several different airlines at the time, and enjoyed being able to do small "top-off" transfers at the time I needed to redeem an award.

Then our company switched everything over to Amex, and Diner's Club converted all existing accounts over to personal Montage cards, with a one-year free extension for both the card itself and membership in Club Rewards. But by then, the conversion fee effectively drove the redemption under 1-to-1. At the end of the free year, I would have been willing to pay the fee for the mainline Diner's card (Montage doesn't have primary rental car insurance), but DC refused to allow me to do that. My credit report was fine and I had 8 years of history and probably $250k in total spend with DC, but they expected me to pay for the Montage card. So I switched to SPG Amex and looking back I can't believe I didn't do it years earlier.

I just have to, uh, be as careful with rental cars as I am with my own car.

I have the impression that there is a big group of voters who like to see some changes in their favourite programme. Let me come up with an example:

SPG won almost everything until 2005 and almost nothing in 2006. The main �change� in SPG was a slowdown in targeted promotions. PC was next to nothing until 2005 and won big in 2006. The main �change� in PC was the possibility to enrol in a lot of targeted promotions for everyone and referrals for �Royal Ambassador�. It would not a big surprise if PC will slow down as these freebies are too costly. I guess voting will go down the hill.

As a very frequent WN flyer (every week) I'm still trying to figure out what "executive level". The CP? That is crap. They offer greyhound of the sky service. I like the frequency of the awards I used to get, but with single credits, it is so-so. Whomever voted for that one for WN was intoxicated at best. The Freddies are a joke.

The methodology has been questioned in the past as being too susceptible to manipulation by folks who want to "game the system".

Because it is not the numbers of folks who vote for a given program as the "best" that is determinative, but rather the "value" the voters who selected that program give it, a program that a few think is truly "best" can win if those few give it automatic "10s" while the more popular programs are honestly graded. This has led in the past to "organized" attempts to vote a particular program "in" by giving it inflated values, or to punish a program by selecting it as the "best" but awarding value grades of "1" (one year Randy threw out a bunch of such votes on the grounds that someone who honestly thought a program merited a value of "1" could hardly honestly think it was the "best").

I understand Randy's concern. If you're truly trying to recognize quality, you can't simply count noses; that translates into a popularity contest and you might as well tally memberships and give the award to the program with the most active members. On the other hand, the current methodology does indeed lend itself to gaming.

And it is difficult for the travelers to have the base to honestly determine how a given program compares to all others out there, since a frequent traveler usually doesn't survey all of the programs every year, but rather concentrates on a few in order to achieve elite status.

I'm not sure where the answer lies, but it may be in some combination of the "users" verdict (votes of the travelers) and the expert panel evaluation, perhaps where experts evaluate (say) the five programs that the voters choose as their most favorite in each category.

I'm not sure what the answer is, but I do agree the question merits consideration.

Some sort of hybrid approach could work. Voters can to filter, experts render the final decisions. I like it...

As for the obvious next question "Who should make up the expert panel and when would they convene to make final decisions?", my obvious next answer is "A bunch of Flyertalkers, gathered at a Do, a few beers deep into a Saturday evening." That was easy! Problem solved!

It's a popularity contest that allows ballot-box stuffing. As long as you keep this in mind, and don't try to assign anything meaningful to the awards, it is what it is.

Frequent traveler programs mean too many things to too many different people.

While the Freddies certainly make little-to-no sense to me now, I'm fairly confident that, after any overhaul, they would make the same or less sense than they make to me now.

For me, the Freddies are just a reminder to take a personal look at my various programs. Honestly, I don't look heavily into Freddies results anymore; the way I hear of results is in a forum when someone spouts off about them. And I seem to tend to agree with the spout-off.

This is a good point: particularly when I look through the "Best Awards" choices for voting, I think "Wow...I didn't know that was available!" The net result was there there are a couple of new hotel programs that I have at least signed up for, subscribed to newsletters, etc. Always good to know what else is going on besides your "old faithful" programs.

This illustrates the weakness in the methodology. Single issue voters will rate their single programs highly. Voters who have experience with multiple programs will be more judicious in their rankings. As a result, less experienced and qualified voters have greater weight in Freddie selection.

Thus the nonsense about LUV having the best elite program.