Sample: 2,000 UK adults (18+), nationally representative, fielded 1–3 July 2026.
The core problem: loyalty programmes are underdelivering on their name
Only 37% of consumers surveyed belong to any travel or hospitality loyalty programme, and even among members, rewards rarely drive repeat behaviour — just 22% say rewards “always” or “often” influence whether they rebook. Worse, 44%¹ agree that “collecting points feels less valuable than it did five years ago,” driven mainly by slow accumulation (51%) and perceived devaluation (38%²).
For a CMO, this is a retention-economics problem: the mechanism built to reduce reliance on price competition is instead reinforcing it.
45% say the deciding factor between two otherwise-equal brands would be immediate benefits like discounts or upgrades, versus just 17% who’d be swayed by points — meaning most programmes are currently optimised for the wrong lever.
There’s also a churn signal: 21% have actively stopped collecting points somewhere, most commonly because rewards took too long to earn (37%) or weren’t valuable enough (32%). That’s a quantifiable pool of lapsed participants who were once willing to engage and were let down by programme design, not lack of interest.
The bigger opportunity: nobody owns “best in class” yet
Asked which brand has the most rewarding loyalty programme, 46% said “unsure” — almost double the top named brand (Booking.com, 25%). This is wide open, category-level white space: no single travel or hospitality brand has established a clear reputational lead on loyalty value, which means the prize for actually solving the reward-fatigue problem is differentiation, not just retention. It also means brand marketing and loyalty marketing need to work harder together because right now, even engaged spenders can’t name a standout.
The clearest lever for winning that space is personalisation: 66%³ would spend more with a brand if the programme felt more tailored to them, and 61%¹ agree that brands who visibly adapt to changing customer expectations earn more loyalty. But there’s a substantial expectation-delivery gap: only 38%¹ feel the brands they book with most frequently actually recognise and appreciate their loyalty, a 23-point shortfall against stated expectations. Closing that gap is likely to move both spend and advocacy.
Communication is a silent leak in the funnel
Only 37% think brands communicate loyalty benefits clearly, and 36% think they do so in a timely way, with roughly 4 in 10 simply “unsure” on both. This is a lower-cost fix than redesigning the reward economics, and it’s likely suppressing programme value that already exists but isn’t landing.
Before CMOs invest in richer rewards, there’s a real question of whether current rewards are even being communicated well enough to register.
Segment priorities: where the response is highly uneven
Age is the single sharpest predictor of engagement, and it runs counter to some conventional wisdom.
Membership shrinks dramatically from 59% at 18-24 to 23% at 55+, and brand awareness follows the same slope (63% of 55+ can’t name a rewarding programme, vs 25% of 18-24s) — signalling that older, often higher-spending travellers are being left cold by current loyalty propositions rather than being naturally loyal to legacy points schemes. Counterintuitively, it’s the youngest cohort that’s most receptive to a traditional points model (31% would choose points over immediate benefit and most motivated by personalisation and exclusivity (178% vs 3% for 55+ on personalised experiences). The 25-44 bracket is where recognition and willingness-to-spend-more peak (47-49% feel recognised, 69-73% would spend more for tailoring) — this is the highest-value segment to protect and reward now, before habits calcify. Older audiences (55+) respond better to straightforward, tangible perks (upgrades, free extras) than to points mechanics or personalisation messaging.[ES1.1][SR1.2]
What this suggests for strategy
The data points toward three priorities in rank order of likely impact-to-effort: first, rebalance reward mix toward immediate, redeemable value rather than long-horizon point accumulation, since that’s what’s actually driving switching behaviour across nearly every segment; second, fix communication clarity and timeliness before investing further in reward richness, since a meaningful share of dissatisfaction may be a messaging failure rather than a product failure; third, treat 25-44 as the loyalty core to protect with personalisation investment, while using simpler, tangible-perk messaging to re-engage the 55+ segment that current programmes are visibly failing to reach.
The research was conducted by Censuswide, among a sample of 2000 UK Respondents (Nat Rep 18+). The data was collected between 01.07.2026 – 03.07.2026. Censuswide is a member of the Market Research Society (MRS) and the British Polling Council (BPC), and a signatory of the Global Data Quality Pledge. We adhere to the MRS Code of Conduct and ESOMAR principles
¹ Combines ‘Strongly agree’ and ‘Somewhat agree’
² Those who agree that collecting points feels less valuable to them than it did five years ago
³ Combines ‘Yes, definitely’ and ‘Yes, possibly’
