Benchmarking the loyalty and engagement programs shaping (and failing) modern travel

Earlier this year, we published The State of Travel Subscriptions 2026 Report. It is one of the largest behavioral analyses of flight subscription programs ever conducted, covering 600,000+ subscription-powered flights across 200,000 travelers and six airline programs.

The report made an argument that traditional loyalty advocates in the airline industry likely don’t want to hear: the loyalty systems that have dominated travel for two decades are no longer working for travelers. 

• The points system has become opaque. 
• Tiers get harder to reach. 
• Younger travelers opt out entirely. 

And the entire system is held together by switching friction and sunk costs instead of customer satisfaction. We called this the difference between lock-in and log-in. And we argued that the only loyalty worth building in 2026 is the kind travelers choose voluntarily, because the value behind the log-in wall is genuinely worth returning for.

That report was Season 1 of our The Loyalty Shift Series. Today, it’s time to kick off Season 2.

From framework to evidence

Season 1 gave the travel industry and its loyalty landscape a foundation. It introduced the Relational Anchor, which is our framework for what modern loyalty actually requires.

But ultimately, a framework without measurement is just a point of view. So we built a benchmarking tool.

The Caravelo Loyalty Scorecard is an objective benchmarking methodology that takes any travel brand’s loyalty program (including the company’s key engagement initiatives), maps it against the three pillars of the Relational Anchor, scores it across fifteen measurable sub-dimensions, and produces a structured profile that tells you:

• How well a given loyalty program performs 
• Where its structural vulnerabilities lie 
• And how exposed it is to the AI disruption reshaping travel distribution going forward

Starting today, we will apply that tool systematically across the travel industry, including major airlines, OTAs, hotel groups, and many more.  For each travel provider, we will score them, compare them, and tell the story of what the data reveals.  

The Relational Anchor in sixty seconds

For those new to the Relational Anchor framework: modern loyalty rests on three pillars.

Together, these three pillars determine the shape of a brand’s loyalty profile. And the shape reveals its true value proposition.

How the scorecard works

The question is: how do we actually measure that shape? That is exactly what the Caravelo Loyalty Scorecard is built to answer.

Each of the three pillars breaks down into five measurable sub-dimensions (fifteen in total) that allow us to assess any loyalty program with consistency and precision.

For each brand, we research and assess the full ecosystem of key initiatives designed to drive repeat engagement and brand preference – mostly the respective loyalty program, but also other product, membership, subscription, or engagement mechanics that meaningfully influence whether a traveler chooses the same brand again. 

We draw on official program pages, loyalty specialist coverage, app store data, press releases, and recent industry analysis. Where a brand operates a particularly complex portfolio of loyalty mechanics, we make our assessment scope explicit upfront so the reader understands exactly what is and is not included in the scores.

Scores are weighted equally across all fifteen sub-dimensions and then aggregated into three pillar-level scores. The result is a triangle (a radar chart with three axes) whose shape immediately tells the structural story. 

To make cross-brand comparison even more immediate, we distill the three pillar scores into a single number: the Anchor Score. 

It is calculated as a simple average of the Access, Control, and Convenience pillar scores, producing a figure between 0 and 5 that allows brands to be ranked and compared at a glance.

One deliberate choice worth noting: given that Access is the hardest pillar to build (actually the most neglected across the industry), and the only one that AI cannot replicate, there is a credible argument for weighting it more heavily in this calculation. We chose not to. 

Equal weighting keeps the Anchor Score simple, transparent, and straightforwardly replicable by anyone applying the framework independently. The Access argument is made in the scores themselves, not in the math.

Where data is insufficient to credibly score a sub-dimension, we flag it transparently rather than estimate it. The scorecard is only as useful as it is honest.

The different archetypes

When you map enough loyalty programs against the three pillars, distinct shapes emerge. We call these the loyalty archetypes. Knowing which one a brand matches is the fastest way to understand its strategic position and, more importantly, its vulnerability.

Here are the three most important archetypes:

The Anchored Brand scores strongly across all three pillars. Travelers log in not because they are trapped, but because the loyalty offering consistently delivers exclusive value, empowers decision-making, and removes friction at every touchpoint. 

This is the aspirational state. It is rare. In travel, it barely exists yet.

The Well-Built Commodity is the most common archetype amongst the leading travel brands today, as we will uncover in future editions. Control and Convenience are solid: pricing is relatively transparent, flexibility is built in, and the booking flow is mostly clean. These are genuinely competent programs, often built with real investment and care. 

The problem is not what they have built. The problem is what they do not yet have: there is nothing behind the login wall that travelers cannot find elsewhere. In a world where AI agents can surface, compare, and replicate any publicly available offer within seconds, operational competence alone stops being a competitive advantage. The Well-Built Commodity is not failing today. But it is not prepared for tomorrow.

The Unanchored Program scores weakly across all three pillars. These are loyalty programs in name only: points accumulate, and tiers exist, but travelers feel no meaningful difference between logging in and booking as a guest. The triangle is nearly flat. Loyalty exists mostly as inertia. And this, frankly, describes too many of the programs operating across travel today. 

When that inertia breaks (and it will, be assured), there is nothing underneath it.

What comes next

We are going to work through the travel industry systematically, applying this diagnostic to the brands and categories that matter most. 

Every assessment will be backed by current research, scored transparently, and published with enough detail to be genuinely useful.

We are starting where the stakes are highest, and the gap between reputation and reality is widest: the world’s five most prominent Online Travel Agencies.

These are the platforms that collectively process the majority of the world’s travel bookings. They are also (with one notable exception) operating without a credible answer to the Access problem, which is the single most important loyalty challenge in an era where AI is about to commoditize everything else they offer. And one of them doesn’t even have a classical loyalty or engagement program yet. And that, it turns out, might be the most interesting story of all.

The OTA assessment drops in two weeks.