This summer, Future Partners took a deep dive American travelers who regularly upgrade their airline seats or hotel rooms when they travel for leisure. With each purchase of a plane ticket or reservation of a hotel room, travel brands provide a potential entry point for their customers to enhance their travel experience. But among those who do choose to upgrade, what are their wider travel behaviors and preferences, and what might those tell us about who, in the current economy, is willing to spend more on these types of add-ons? Future Partners found that, among American travelers surveyed in June 2025, only a small fraction (3.6%) said they always upgrade, while about one in ten (11.2%) said they often do. But a further quarter (25.1%) of travelers said they sometimes purchase these upgrades, bringing the total share of American travelers who upgrade their airline seats or hotel rooms to roughly four in ten (39.9%).
Looking at the demographic data behind these four in ten “upgrade travelers,” we found that they tend to skew male (51.6% compared to 48.0% of total American travelers) who are higher income with an average of over $130,000, who are significantly more likely to live in urban areas (32.1% vs. 27.6% of total American travelers). They are also more likely to be in the full swing of their lives, skewing towards graduate degree-holders (33.8% vs. 28.2%) who are working full-time (65.8% vs. 60.6%), and who are married (60.7% vs. 54.5%) with school-aged children (34.8% vs. 29.5%). In other words, not only are they making more money from full-time jobs, but they also are more likely to be busy with young families. As such, these upgrades may not just be to augment their travel experience, but to help ease the travel journey and enhance the space they must share with their families on their vacations.
Given their demographic profile, it is not entirely surprising that these upgrade travelers are generally more inclined to have a positive financial outlook and a more robust projection for near-term future travel. Nearly four in ten (38.8%) said they are financially better off now than they were a year ago, well ahead of the national average of 30.6 percent. Even more telling, the majority of upgrade travelers (50.9%) expect their household finances to improve even more in the coming year (vs. 45.3% of total American travelers). This converts to a stronger propensity to spend on leisure travel, with 42.0 percent of upgrade travelers saying that now is a good time to spend on travel, compared to just 31.3 percent of all American travelers. 68.6 percent of upgrade travelers said that leisure travel will be a high budget priority for the next three months (vs. 57.1% of total American travelers). Their maximum travel budget for the next year is a healthy $7,108 on average, +29.0 percent higher than the national average annual travel budget of $5,508 reported in July 2025. In other words, these upgrade travelers have the financial wherewithal to spend on travel and they are prioritizing allocating ample funds for leisure travel experiences – including hotel room and flight seat upgrades.
These upgrade travelers are loyal airline and hotel brand customers, which means they are tapping into affiliated rewards programs more than the average American traveler. In fact, they are staunch users of travel rewards and points programs, from specific travel brands to booking websites to credit cards. Eight in ten (80.1%) are an active user of at least one airline rewards program (vs. 65.9% of total American travelers), while more than three in four (77.4%) are actively using at least one hotel rewards program (vs. 66.2%). Most upgrade travelers (55.9%) also reported using credit card points or rewards to purchase travel in the past 12 months, significantly outpacing the 43.2 percent of overall American travelers who said the same. Similarly, more than half (55.1%) are an active user of a booking website rewards program, nearly ten points more than the average American traveler (45.7%).
For further insights into American upgrade travelers, such as what kind of media they are consuming, what other travel planning resources they use, and what destinations they are interested in visiting, please reach out to our team at [email protected].
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