Almost 1700 frequent flyers have voted on the best airline rewards program, as judged by flight availability, and the best value on a points-by-flight basis.
The voters – all part of the Point Hacks community – put Qantas on top on a national level, but the second national place position, Virgin Velocity, was the most preferred in some states and among younger flyers.
Qantas Frequent Flyer received the most votes nationally (33 per cent of respondents), followed by Velocity. However, frequent flyers in Queensland, the ACT and Tasmania rated Velocity as number one (34, 55 and 48 per cent respectively).
“Velocity was voted the best by Queenslanders, potentially due to Virgin being the predominant carrier in Gold Coast and Virgin being headquartered in Brisbane,” said Daniel Sciberras, Point Hacks’ spokesperson and frequent flyer expert.
Singapore Airlines’ KrisFlyer came in third place nationally, with 25 per cent of the vote – mostly favoured by higher income earners. It was selected as the number one program by 40 per cent of respondents who held investor and shareholder roles.
“KrisFlyer may be more popular among higher income earners as they offer a very premium product,” said Mr Sciberras.
“Singapore Airlines created and were the first to introduce the Suites Class which has strong appeal for higher-income earners which allows them to retain their customers.”
Interestingly, more lower income earners than high earners voted Velocity as the leading program: 35 per cent of voters earning less than $50,000 annually preferred Velocity, against just 23 per cent of the same income earners who voted for Qantas.
“The results reflect not only the value of the points and availability of flights in these programs, but also the different factors that can affect this,” said Mr Sciberras.
“Qantas still has the majority of corporate contracts, which could account for Victorian and NSW-residents ranking the Qantas Frequent Flyer program the best due to travelling with the airline for work.”
Mr Sciberras went on to say that those who typically fly with Qantas for work would most likely then choose the airline for personal travel, perhaps due to the ability to use the points earned from work for access to lounges and VIP services.
Point Hacks is an independent platform for one of Australia’s biggest pool of frequent flyers and rewards point experts.
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