Years ago, 24/7 Wall St. gave an annual ranking of the U.S.’s most hated companies. Not surprisingly, there was invariably at least one travel-related company on the list each year. And – spoilers – it was typically an airline.
Anyway, they ran the list annually from around 2011 through 2023. And then, in 2024, they didn’t, which was disappointing.
BUT they’re back in 2025, but with a twist – instead of researching it all themselves, they reported on the research another company did. But that company was the American Customer Satisfaction Index’s ACSI Travel Study, so we really can’t complain. And instead of focusing on America’s most hated COMPANIES in general, they only reported on the travel industry. Specifically:
- Airlines
- Lodging
- Car rentals
- Rideshare companies
- Online travel agencies
Their methodology
Their rankings were based on 16,771 surveys filled out via email between April 2024 and March 2025. From ACSI:
Customers are asked to evaluate their recent experiences with the largest companies in terms of market share, plus an aggregate category consisting of “all other”—and thus smaller—companies.
ACSI survey data are used as inputs to the Index’s cause-and-effect econometric model, which estimates customer satisfaction as the result of the survey-measured inputs of customer expectations, perceptions of quality, and perceptions of value. The ACSI model, in turn, links customer satisfaction with the survey-measured outcomes of customer complaints and customer loyalty. ACSI clients receive confidential industry-competitive and best-in-class data on all modeled variables and customer experience benchmarks.
Key Trends Across Travel Sectors
Overall, all 3 industries – airlines, lodging and car rentals – scored worse in 2025 than they did in 2024.
- Decreased satisfaction with airlines is occurring while business travel still hasn’t reached pre-pandemic levels, and the industry faces an uncertain economic outlook.
- Hotels’ worse scores are happening as their traditional model continues to be challenged by new operational models, nontraditional competitors such as Airbnb, and different customer expectations in comparison to years past.
- Car rental companies have been receiving more complaints this year, and they’re finding it more challenging to keep up positive customer experiences.
The results (Spoilers: not great)
Airlines
Compared to 2024 (when ACSI’s overall airline rating was 78 out of 100), the airline industry score dropped 4 points, to an overall rating of 74 out of 100. The airline with the worst score was Frontier, with a score of 65 (it was in next-to-last place in 2024, when it scored 69. American and Alaska dropped even more than that compared to their 2024 scores – 8% and 7%, respectively. But their overall scores were still better than Frontier’s (73 and 76, respectively).
Southwest and Spirit were the only airlines to score better than last year. However, it’s not lost on us that the surveys were done between April 2024 and March 2025…and although Southwest’s announcements or big changes occurred during that time frame, they hadn’t yet gone into place. So it’ll be interesting to see what happens to its score in 2026.
Here are the scores for airlines:
- Southwest: 80 (78 in 2024) (+2)
- Delta: 77 (77 in 2024) (no change)
- JetBlue: 77 (77 in 2024) (no change)
- Alaska: 76 (82 in 2024) (-6)
- American: 73 (79 in 2024) (-4)
- United: 73 (75 in 2024) (-2)
- All others: 70 (73 in 2024) (-3)
- Spirit: 69 (67 in 2024) (+2)
- Frontier: 65 (69 in 2024) (-4)
Hotels
Overall, lodging companies did even worse than airlines – only one got a better score than 2024 (IHG…+1). All the rest did between 1 and 4 points worse than last year. It’s noted that Airbnb’s score was “no change”…but they’re not a hotel, so although ACSI may count them, we don’t ;-).
Here are the scores for hotels/lodging:
- Hilton: 80 (81 in 2024) (-1)
- IHG: 79 (78 in 2024) (+1)
- Airbnb: 78 (78 in 2024) (no change)
- Marriott: 78 (79 in 2024) (-1)
- Hyatt: 76 (78 in 2024) (-2)
- BWH: Hotels 75 (77 in 2024) (-2)
- Choice: 72 (75 in 2024) (-3)
- Wyndham: 71 (70 in 2024) (-1)
- G6 Hospitality 67 (not included in 2024 ranking)
Car Rental Companies
The biggest “fall from grace” came from car rental companies. Although Enterprise and Budget (the latter is under the Avis Budget umbrella) both had better scores than they did in 2024, those that scored lower (which was, ahem, all the rest) really crashed and burned (you see what I did there?)
Here are the scores for car rental companies:
- Enterprise: 78 (77 in 2024) (+1)
- Budget (Avis Budget): 77 (73 in 2024) (+4)
- Hertz: 76 (78 in 2024) (-2)
- Avis (Avis Budget): 74 (78 in 2024) (-4)
- Dollar (Hertz): 73 (75 in 2024) (-2)
- National (Enterprise): 71 (84 in 2024) (-13)
Click here to see a PDF of ACSI’s full report, including key findings between 2024 and 2025, as well as comparisons of rideshare companies and online travel agencies.
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