In 1872, the Grand UnIon tea Company started giving tickets to customers every time they bought a pound of tea; collect four and you'd get a pound free. Now, practically every retailer has its own loyalty program.

Loyalty programs have now become an essential part of an enormous number of everyday transactions: During the conference call announcing the company's most recent quarterly financial results, for instance, Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson said, "Starbucks Rewards now represents 53 percent of the spend in our stores, which is at an all-time high...Rewards members... are spending at an elevated rate and visit our stores at three times the frequency rate versus our nonmembers."

By one estimate, the average U.S. household is enrolled in 18 different loyalty programs. The challenge for companies is not getting customers to sign up, but motivating them to become truly engaged program users; research shows that consumers only actively use half of the plans they're enrolled in. The challenge for consumers is to decide which of the crowd of programs vying for their attention are worthwhile.

For brands, it's a potentially huge payoff, since it's far more expensive to get new customers than to keep existing ones, and loyalty program members tend to spend far more than nonmembers. Hanging on to customers has become even more critical during the pandemic when a third of shoppers have indicated their willingness to switch brands.

Brands have adopted a number of different strategies in order to make their loyalty programs stand out. One important trend is gamification: introducing digital games into loyalty programs in a variety of ways to engage customers and develop a sense of community among them. Wendy's, for example, has its own channel on the video game livestreaming platform Twitch. Chipotle has done a Halloween promotion in partnership with the game platform Roblox, in which users are invited to try to navigate the "Boorito maze"—and visit its busy online restaurant—to win branded virtual items as well as real-life food.

Another trend has been to make loyalty programs an integral part of any purchase by merging them with payment systems. Last July, for instance, the Swedish fintech company Klarna, which offers customers "buy now, pay later" options, purchased Stocard, a German company that provides digital wallets that allow users to manage multiple loyalty program accounts.

The only constant in loyalty programs right now is change. To try to help make some sense of that and highlight the brands whose customers like their loyalty programs the best, Newsweek and Statista are proud to offer their list of America's Best Loyalty Programs 2022. Newsweek hopes you find it useful whether you are a consumer looking for the best deals and support or whether you are a marketer looking to see which customer retention strategies really work.