Loyalty programs have never been easier to join.
They sit in grocery apps, coffee shop scanners, airline accounts, hotel memberships, retail profiles, restaurant apps and digital entertainment platforms. Customers collect points, unlock rewards, chase tiers, receive offers and decide, often in seconds, whether a program is worth their attention.
But loyalty is no longer just about getting someone to sign up.
The average Canadian now belongs to more than 15 loyalty programs, yet is active in fewer than 10. Consumers still say loyalty programs influence where they spend, whether they stay with a brand and whether they recommend it to others. At the same time, many customers are frustrated by rewards that take too long to earn, expire before they can use them or fail to feel personally relevant.
That tension is at the centre of modern loyalty.
Customers still want value. Brands still see measurable returns. But the programs that win attention today are not only the ones that offer points or discounts. They are the ones that make loyalty feel easy, personal, rewarding and worth returning to.
So, what keeps customers coming back?
We analyzed current loyalty data, consumer surveys, industry reports, brand examples, and academic research to explore how loyalty programs are changing, why rewards alone are not enough, and what marketers can learn from industries built around repeat engagement, recognition, progress, and play.
Key findings
- Canadians belong to an average of 15.2 loyalty programs, but are active in only 9.3. Active participation is holding at 61%. [Bond]
- 83% of members say loyalty programs make them more likely to continue doing business with brands. [Bond]
- 74% of members are more likely to recommend brands with good loyalty programs. [Bond]
- 68% of members adjust their spending to maximize loyalty benefits. [Bond]
- 43.2% of consumers are more likely to join a loyalty program than last year, while 65.9% say using a loyalty program is now part of their lives. [Antavo]
- 92.7% of program owners who measure performance reported positive ROI, with an average return of 5.3x among those with positive ROI. [Antavo]
- 86% of consumers rate financial rewards and simplicity/ease of use as important or very important loyalty program attributes. [Deloitte]
- Nearly three in four consumers want personalized rewards in loyalty programs. [Deloitte Digital]
- 49.1% of consumers say rewards take too long to earn, 41.1% are frustrated by expiring rewards, and 38.9% find rewards unattractive. [Antavo]
- 82.6% of marketers believe loyalty programs make customers feel valued, but only 56.2% of consumers agree. [Antavo]
- 77% of U.S. online adults like engaging with loyalty programs even when they are not making a purchase. [Forrester]
- 51.4% of marketers now use AI in loyalty program management, up from 37.1% the previous year. [Antavo]
- Loyalty program members generate up to 1.5x more spend, while redeemers generate up to 2.1x more spend. [Bond]
Loyalty is not an enrollment problem
The average Canadian belongs to 15.2 loyalty programs, but is active in only 9.3. That gap says a lot about where loyalty stands today.
Most consumers already understand the basic exchange: sign up, identify yourself, collect something, earn something, save something. The problem is not awareness. It is activity.
Foundational loyalty research has long warned marketers not to confuse repeat behaviour with true loyalty. In their 2003 paper, Mark Uncles, Grahame Dowling, and Kathy Hammond argued that customer loyalty can mean different things: a positive attitude toward a brand, repeat behaviour, or behaviour shaped by circumstances such as price, location, convenience and availability. [Uncles, Dowling and Hammond]
That distinction still matters. A customer may return to the same coffee shop because they love the brand. They may also return because it is closest to work. A shopper may scan a loyalty card every week without feeling attached to the retailer.
This is why enrollment can be misleading. A member is not necessarily an engaged member. An account is not necessarily a relationship. A point balance is not necessarily a reason to return.
The question is not, “How many members do we have?”
It is, “How many members are still paying attention?”
Rewards still matter, but points alone are not enough
The data makes one thing clear: customers still care about value.
Deloitte found that 86% of consumers rate financial rewards and simplicity or ease of use as important or very important loyalty program attributes. Antavo also found that money-saving benefits such as coupons, vouchers and cashback remain the top reason customers join or use loyalty programs.
But there is a difference between a reward that attracts someone and a program that keeps them engaged.
Antavo found that 49.1% of consumers say rewards take too long to earn, 41.1% are frustrated when rewards expire before they can use them, and 38.9% find rewards unattractive. In other words, the reward itself is not always the issue. The problem is how reachable, useful, and motivating it feels.
This is another point where older loyalty research remains useful as context. In 1997, Grahame Dowling and Mark Uncles argued that loyalty programs can become expensive, easy to copy and commercially weak if they do not enhance the brand’s core value proposition. [Dowling and Uncles]
Their argument was not that loyalty programs cannot work. It was that they need to do more than sit on top of a brand as a promotional layer. A strong loyalty program should make returning feel easier, smarter, more rewarding, or more personally relevant than going elsewhere.
Points alone rarely do that.
The power of the next reward
Reward design matters because customers do not experience all rewards the same way.
In a 2003 study, Youjae Yi and Hoseong Jeon found that the type and timing of rewards can shape how valuable a loyalty program feels. In low-involvement categories, immediate rewards were more effective than delayed rewards in building program value. In high-involvement categories, direct rewards were more effective than indirect rewards. [Yi and Jeon]
That has clear implications for marketers.
A hotel guest saving toward an upgrade may be willing to wait. An airline passenger chasing status may tolerate a longer climb. A restaurant app user or casual retail shopper may need faster reinforcement. If the reward feels too far away, the program can fade into the background.
This is one reason digital gaming offers a useful comparison.
Games rarely ask people to participate for long stretches without feedback. They show progress constantly. Players see levels, streaks, milestones, unlocks, challenges, badges, countdowns and rewards that make the next action feel meaningful.
Loyalty programs do not need to copy gaming mechanics literally. But the underlying principle is valuable: people are more likely to keep participating when they can see progress.
A loyalty program should answer three simple questions for the customer:
- What have I earned?
- What am I close to earning?
- Why should I come back now?
If customers cannot answer those questions quickly, the program may be too passive to change behaviour.
Recognition is becoming a loyalty currency
The key findings show that value matters. But they also show that value alone is not solving the loyalty problem.
Antavo found a major perception gap: 82.6% of marketers believe loyalty programs make customers feel valued, but only 56.2% of consumers agree.
That gap is important because loyalty is not only about earning something. It is also about feeling recognized.
Bond’s 2026 report points in the same direction, identifying access, recognition and status as important ways to differentiate beyond price. That matters in a market where discounts are easy to copy, and customers are already enrolled in more programs than they actively use.
Research on loyalty program status helps explain why this works. Xavier Drèze and Joseph C. Nunes found that tier structure can shape how customers perceive status. Their research showed that adding a subordinate tier can enhance the status of those above it, while making the top tier too crowded can dilute the sense of exclusivity. [Drèze and Nunes]
More recent loyalty research also points beyond simple points-based value. A 2016 study of high- and low-end fashion retailers found that different benefit types matter in different contexts: symbolic benefits were especially important for high-end fashion satisfaction, utilitarian benefits mattered more in low-end fashion, and hedonic benefits mattered in both. [Stathopoulou and Balabanis]
In plain terms: customers notice not only what they get, but what the benefit says about them.
A discount says, “Here is money off.”
Recognition says, “We know who you are.”
The strongest loyalty programs often use both.
Personalization has become the expectation
Nearly three in four consumers want personalized rewards in loyalty programs, according to Deloitte Digital.
That does not mean customers want more notifications, more emails or more generic “recommended for you” offers. It means they want programs to use what they know in ways that feel useful.
Personalization works when it reduces effort, improves relevance or makes the customer feel understood. It fails when it feels random, intrusive or disconnected from what the customer actually values.
This is where loyalty has moved well beyond the old points-card model.
A 2021 study on omnichannel retailing found that the quality of channel integration can positively influence customer engagement and receptiveness to relationship programs, which in turn affect loyalty. [Gao and Huang]
That matters because customers do not experience loyalty in one place. They experience it across apps, emails, stores, websites, service interactions, recommendations and rewards. If those touchpoints feel disconnected, the program feels weaker.
Antavo found that 51.4% of marketers now use AI in loyalty program management, up from 37.1% the previous year. It also found that nine out of 10 program owners face challenges analyzing loyalty data.
A 2025 paper on AI agents and customer loyalty in hospitality argues that brands may need to rethink loyalty in an AI-mediated environment, including whether loyalty is directed toward the brand, the agent or the wider ecosystem. [Bilgihan et al.]
That may sound futuristic, but the practical implication is immediate. Brands are collecting data through apps, accounts, transactions, redemptions and preferences. The advantage is not simply having that data. It is turning it into better timing, better offers, better experiences and better reasons to return.
A personalized reward should not feel like a brand showing off what it knows. It should feel like the program saved the customer time, gave them something relevant or made the next decision easier.
Loyalty needs to happen between purchases
Forrester’s 2024 data shows that 77% of U.S. online adults like engaging with loyalty programs even when they are not purchasing.
That finding shifts loyalty away from a purely transactional model.
If a program only matters at checkout, it has fewer chances to build a relationship. But if it gives customers reasons to engage between purchases, it can become part of a broader habit.
This is another place where gaming, apps and digital entertainment offer useful lessons. The best digital experiences do not wait for a transaction to create engagement. They give users reasons to return through progress, novelty, anticipation, personalization and small moments of reward.
For consumer brands, this could mean tracking progress toward a reward, browsing member-only offers, unlocking milestones, receiving useful reminders, accessing personalized recommendations or earning rewards for non-purchase behaviours.
The point is not to create engagement for its own sake. The point is to make the program feel alive.
A loyalty account that only updates after a purchase can feel static. A loyalty experience that gives customers something to check, unlock, use or look forward to has a better chance of staying active.
Starbucks shows the power and risk of habit-based loyalty
Starbucks is one of the clearest examples of how large a repeat-engagement loyalty program can become.
In Q2 fiscal 2024, Starbucks reported 32.8 million 90-day active Starbucks Rewards members in the U.S., up 6% year over year. That scale shows the power of a loyalty program built around frequency, mobile ordering, stored value, rewards and customer habit. [Starbucks]
But Starbucks also shows why loyalty design is delicate.
When the company changed its rewards structure in 2016, Eater coverage noted that some customers viewed the update as a downgrade because the program shifted from rewarding frequency to rewarding spend. [Eater]
Forrester later made a similar point about Starbucks’ loyalty changes, arguing that program updates can feel like a downgrade when they alter the value exchange customers thought they understood. [Forrester]
The lesson is that customers build expectations around earning, progress and redemption. When those expectations change, the brand needs to make the new value clear.
A loyalty program is not just a financial model. It is a psychological contract.
What digital entertainment gets right
Digital entertainment platforms, including online gaming, are useful case studies in loyalty because they are built around repeat engagement.
The most effective platforms do not rely on one mechanic. They combine several elements: visible progress, immediate feedback, reward anticipation, personalization, milestones, levels, limited-time moments, and clear next steps.
For marketers, the lesson is not to turn every loyalty program into a game. It is to understand why these mechanics work.
They make the next action feel worthwhile. They show people where they stand. They reduce the distance between participation and reward. They create a rhythm of return.
Jackpot City’s taxi campaign shows how these ideas can move beyond a standard digital offer and become a real-world loyalty moment. The campaign introduced branded Co-op Cabs in Toronto, offering complimentary rides and a chance to win cash prizes. Instead of asking people to engage only inside an account, the promotion created surprise, anticipation and a memorable reward experience in the city itself. [Jackpot City Taxi]
That is the broader loyalty lesson: the strongest programs do not just offer value. They make the interaction feel worth remembering.
This is especially relevant for brands trying to move beyond discount dependency. If the only reason to return is a lower price, the brand is training customers to wait for deals. But if the program offers progress, access, recognition, ease and relevant rewards, it gives customers more reasons to stay engaged.
That is the difference between a promotion and a loyalty system.
The loyalty playbook for modern marketers
The current data points to a simple conclusion: loyalty programs still matter, but the bar is higher.
Consumers are still joining them. Members say they influence where they spend, whether they stay and whether they recommend. Program owners report positive ROI. But customers are also carrying more memberships than they actively use, growing frustrated with unreachable rewards and noticing when brands overestimate how valued they feel.
The next generation of loyalty will be built around five principles:
- Make value visible. Customers should understand what they are earning, how close they are and why it matters.
- Reward progress, not just purchases. Milestones, streaks, tier movement, challenges and non-purchase engagement can make participation feel more active.
- Personalize with purpose. Personalization should make the program easier, more relevant or more useful.
- Treat recognition as a benefit. Access, status, priority, special treatment and tailored rewards can create a stronger emotional connection.
- Reduce friction everywhere. Complicated rules, expiring rewards, unclear value, clunky apps and irrelevant offers all weaken loyalty.
The biggest takeaway
Loyalty is not dead. Passive loyalty is.
The data shows that consumers still value loyalty programs. They join them, use them, spend around them and recommend brands that offer good ones. But they are also more selective, more value-conscious and less willing to stay active in programs that do not feel worth their time.
That is why rewards alone are not enough.
The strongest loyalty programs do more than give customers points. They create progress, recognition, relevance and a reason to return. They make the customer feel that each interaction moves them closer to something useful, enjoyable or personally meaningful.
For marketers, the opportunity is not simply to build bigger loyalty programs.
It is to build better ones.
Methodology
This analysis draws on research, surveys, industry reports, brand examples, and academic studies about loyalty programs, customer retention, rewards, personalization, status, digital engagement and consumer behaviour.
Sources include Bond, Antavo, Deloitte, Deloitte Digital, Forrester, Starbucks investor materials, Forrester and Eater analysis of Starbucks Rewards, Jackpot City Taxi campaign materials, and academic research from the Journal of Consumer Marketing, Sloan Management Review, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services and the International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management.
Research author
Jackpot City Casino, a licensed operator, offers a wide range of interactive digital casino games designed for adult players seeking online entertainment. They enhance users' experience and promote responsible gaming through education. As part of its commitment to understanding the Canadian audiences it serves, Jackpot City conducted this research to explore how loyalty programs, rewards, and customer recognition across various industries are evolving, insights that help inform more relevant, responsible entertainment experiences across the country.
