A highlight of my year is the annual Freddie Awards ceremony, in which airlines and hotels are recognized by millions of consumer voters for their programs and promotions. The 2014 Freddie Awards took place on April 24, 2014 at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, a picture-perfect venue for the award ceremony. I had the privilege of being seated between Hyatt’s Senior Vice President for Loyalty and Marketing, Jeff Zidell on my right and Herbert Verschuren, Vice President of Customer Marketing for Air France/KLM on my left. It made for some great conversation and a fun evening.
And good food too (unlike last year!)–
The winners—
THE AMERICAS REGION
Airline
Best Customer Service — Southwest Airlines – Rapid Rewards
Best Promotion — Avianca – LifeMiles
Best Elite Program — American Airlines – AAdvantage
Best Redemption Ability — Avianca – LifeMiles
Program of the Year — American Airlines – AAdvantageHotel
Best Customer Service — Marriott Hotels – Marriott Rewards
Best Promotion — Marriott Hotels – Marriott Rewards
Best Elite Program — Hyatt – Gold Passport
Best Redemption Ability — Marriott Hotels – Marriott Rewards
Program of the Year — Marriott Hotels – Marriott RewardsBest Affinity Credit Card — Southwest Airlines – Rapid Rewards Premier Card
EUROPE & AFRICA REGION
Airline
Best Customer Service — SAS – EuroBonus
Best Promotion — AIR FRANCE/KLM – Flying Blue
Best Elite Program — Lufthansa – Miles & More
Best Redemption Ability — AIR FRANCE/KLM – Flying Blue
Program of the Year — AIR FRANCE/KLM – Flying BlueHotel
Best Customer Service — IHG – IHG Rewards Club
Best Promotion — IHG – IHG Rewards Club
Best Elite Program — Starwood – Starwood Preferred Guest
Best Redemption Ability — IHG – IHG Rewards Club
Program of the Year — IHG – IHG Rewards ClubBest Affinity Credit Card — Flying Blue American Express
MIDDLE EAST & ASIA/OCEANIA
Airline
Best Customer Service — Virgin Australia – Velocity
Best Promotion — Virgin Australia – Velocity
Best Elite Program— Virgin Australia – Velocity
Best Redemption Ability — Virgin Australia – Velocity
Program of the Year — Virgin Australia – VelocityHotel
Best Customer Service — Starwood – Starwood Preferred Guest
Best Promotion — IHG – IHG Rewards Club
Best Elite Program — Hyatt – Gold Passport
Best Redemption Ability — Starwood – Starwood Preferred Guest
Program of the Year — Hyatt – Gold PassportBest Affinity Credit Card — ADIB Etihad Guest Card
My Thoughts
1. Voting for Airline Program of the Year may have been different had American Airlines unveiled its no-notice devaluation earlier
American Airlines devalued several aspects of its AAdvatange loyalty program quietly and without prior notice about a week before the ceremony. Does that mean it still has the best loyalty program? I don’t know–I still voted for United because I maintain a perfect upgrade record over the last 16 months and rely heavily on the Star Alliance network, but the news rubbed many voters the wrong way and I think AA would have been punished had the vote been held a bit later. Perhaps Avianca-TACA Lifemiles would have squeaked by as best loyalty program.
Of course you could argue, accurately, that AA still has the best domestic upgrade program for top-tier elites, best award chart for saver travel and is the best airline to redeem three-cabin first class awards on, but I certainly would not vote for AA. First, the strict routing rules and lack of stopovers is a deal-breaker for the way I like to travel when using miles. Second, I find AA agents a mixed bag–some are great, some are terrible: that is not asset, even at the Executive Platinum desk. Last, the deception of devaluing without notice is a cardinal sin. A program cannot be “best” when it shows so little respect for its members.
Now even with all that, United and Delta may still be worse, but I thought good old US Airways Dividend Miles deserved at least an honorable mention. Where else can you get miles so cheap and award routings so creative? Plus, wi-fi across the fleet and nice, clean, new planes with great business class seats on the A330s.
2. Marriott amazes me
I stayed at the Marriott Airport Hotel at SeaTac for Frequent Traveler University and had a great stay. My free gold status from United’s RewardsPlus program got me lounge access and a nice breakfast in the hotel restaurant Sunday morning. But, let’s face it folks–the loyalty program is objectively pretty shoddy compared to Hyatt or Starwood. Yet everywhere you go in the world you will find a Marriott hotel and the chain does an amazing job of managing loyalty expectations. Kudos to Marriott.
My vote for Best Hotel Program was Hyatt and I was glad to see at least Hyatt took home the award for Best Elite Program in the Americas.
3. Air France/KLM Flying Blue wins, British Airways Executive Club loses big
Air France/KLM Flying Blue won several awards in the Europe region and it deserves credit for innovations including Promo Awards (50% off) and a relatively user-friendly online award booking engine that makes searching and booking for space easy. Further, its devaluation was tolerable and as part of the devalued award charts, fuel surcharges actually went down. And, the program added anytime space that while pricey, allows a points booking on just about any flight that has seats for sale.
So, a lot of credit is due Flying Blue, but its is far from the gold standard. In fact, its North American call center continues to live in the Stone Age–customer service is shockingly bad. I was surprsied that British Airways Executive Club did not make it to the final four. BA top-tier status may not be great, but the carrier’s shorthaul redemptions are a far, far, far better value than Flying Blue (e.g. 9K Avios versus 30K miles for one-way business from London to Paris) and though I would love to see the old BA award chart back, the new distance-based chart has some great features like 25K round-trip awards to Europe from North America and great deals on often pricey shorthaul flights (because distance is never a correlation to price in the world of airline tickets).
Executive Club is terrible for longhaul and multi-segment redemptions, but so is Flying Blue in many cases. My vote went to BA and I hope that it maintains its program and does a better job next year in reminding customers of its benefits.
* * *
Award ceremonies tend to be overrated, but I think they are helpful and the message was clear in this one on the airline front–United and Delta need to step up their game. I received an e-mail from both carriers about Freddie Awards voting, so it was not like they were sitting this year out. Flush with cash and soaring profits, Delta may not care, but I hope the folks at United do.
How did Avianca win? Are the votes weighted? Given the relative sizes (orders of magnitude) of the airlines/their frequent flyer programs/number of passengers flown, the large airlines should always win because only a few percentages of flyers happy with one of their programs would be larger than the whole population of flyers on such relatively small airlines.