Voting is just opening for this year’s Freddie Awards, which is the longest standing and most popular travel loyalty awards ceremony, started by Randy Petersen. The first Freddie Awards were held in 1989, and over the years tens of millions of votes have been cast to allow members to recognize the loyalty programs they appreciate most.
Freddie Awards basics
With voting now opening for the 2023 Freddie Awards, I wanted to talk a bit about how Freddie Awards voting works — many people may not be voting in a way that’s in line with what they’re intending.
With this post I’m hoping to clear up some confusion, and maybe we can shake up the results a bit to better reflect our preferences.
Why should you care about the Freddie Awards?
Plain and simple, many of us are passionate about loyalty programs. Loyalty programs (for the most part) really care about winning Freddie Awards. Casting your vote for deserving programs is a great way to send a message to programs you appreciate, and perhaps also to send a message to programs you don’t appreciate.
I’m not in any way involved in the Freddie Awards, but this is truly a passion project, and I know Randy Petersen, View from the Wing, and Pizza in Motion, put a lot of work into it. They really want the best programs to be recognized, and this isn’t some ego fueled vanity project for them.
When is Freddie Awards voting open?
Voting for the Freddie Awards is open from February 15 through March 31, 2023, so there’s a period of just over six weeks where you can vote.
When are Freddie Awards winners revealed?
Each year there’s an event held in late April where winning programs are presented with awards. This year the awards will be held at the National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center on April 27, 2023.
What categories are there in the Freddie Awards?
The Freddie Awards are split between three regions, and you can cast a vote for awards in each region:
- Americas
- Europe & Africa
- Middle East & Asia/Oceania
Within each region there are categories for airlines, hotels, and credit cards.
Airline categories include:
- Program of the Year
- Best Elite Program
- Best Promotion
- Best Customer Service
- Best Redemption Ability
Hotel categories include:
- Program of the Year
- Best Elite Program
- Best Promotion
- Best Customer Service
- Best Redemption Ability
Then there’s a single credit card category:
- Best Affinity Credit Card
How does Freddie Awards voting work?
This is the key reason I’m writing this post. Most people don’t understand how Freddie Awards votes are calculated, and may not be voting in a way that reflects their intentions.
There’s no perfect voting system
The Freddie Awards voting system has been designed so that it’s not a pure popularity contest. That’s because some loyalty programs send emails to members asking them to vote, and obviously that would totally skew the results if it were purely based on number of votes. Furthermore, not all loyalty programs are the same size, so it’s important to recognize smaller programs as well.
That means the Freddie Awards has a value voting system.
How “value voting” works in practice
When you vote in the Freddie Awards in a particular category, you’re asked to rank your choices first, second, and third. You don’t have to rank all three — you could just select your first choice, and not select your second or third choice.
The way points are awarded:
- A program is awarded 10 points if you select it first
- A program is awarded 6.67 points if you select it second
- A program is awarded 3.33 points if you select it third
Then the way the scoring works is that:
- A program’s score (on a scale of 1-10) is determined by the number of points it has earned divided by the number of people who ranked it, either first, second, or third
- Only programs that get at least 2% of the overall vote qualify
Generally you can expect that a winning program will score somewhere around 8-9 points on average.
How this impacts my voting
Logically you might think that if you like three programs, you should rank them first, second, and third. However, in reality you’re typically harming a program if you’re voting it second or third, rather than not voting for it at all. The exception is if a second or third place vote allows a program to even qualify above the 2% threshold, though that shouldn’t be a problem among big programs.
To simplify this as much as possible, and this is generalized advice:
- If you like one program most, vote it first place
- If you moderately like a program, don’t vote it as second or third, since it’s likely to drag the average score down
- The worst thing you can do for a program is vote it in third place, since it would be getting 3.33/10, which will likely drag it down considerably
A concrete example
Let’s say Hyatt and Marriott are competing for the “Program of the Year” category:
- If Hyatt got 10 first place votes, no second place votes, and no third place votes, it would score a perfect 10
- If Marriott got 10 first place votes, 10 second place votes, and 10 third place votes, it would score just 6.67 (10×10 + 10×6.67 + 10×3.33 / 30)
Bottom line
I love loyalty programs (obviously), and I think it’s important to recognize the programs that are trying to do right by members. That’s where the annual Freddie Awards come into play.
I think it’s important to understand how voting works. Consider your choices carefully — obviously vote your favorite program in first place, but also understand that voting a program second or third place is potentially worse than not voting for that program at all (or to flip that, if you’re displeased with a program, voting the program in third place is likely to negatively impact it).
Are you voting in the 2023 Freddie Awards? If so, which programs are you voting for?
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