What’s Happening In Loyalty – September 2026

01 – HOKA launches its membership program across Europe

HOKA rolled out a free membership program in Germany, France, and the UK. Members earn status and unlock rewards through direct-to-consumer purchases and by taking part in promotions, with access to products, events, and member-only perks. The brand paired the launch with a Strava challenge, “Run It Again,” running weekly distance goals from July 20 through mid-September. More markets and features are planned for later phases.

shoez.biz, July 13, 2026

Our take: Two things here are worth a practitioner’s attention. The rollout is phased market by market instead of launched everywhere at once, and the hook is an activity challenge rather than a discount. Running brands have an advantage on that second point, because the behavior they care about is already being tracked by something their members use daily. The harder problem is the one underneath: one program identity across markets, with enough local control that a German member and a UK member each get something that fits where they live.

What this means for you: Decide early what stays global and what stays local. Standardize the things that protect the brand and the economics: strategy, member promise, data and measurement, core platform, governance. Localize the things members actually feel: earn rates, rewards, redemption thresholds, tiers, and promo calendars. Getting that line wrong is expensive to undo after launch. Here is how we would approach it.

02 – Panera rebuilds MyPanera for 70 million members

Panera migrated up to 70 million existing members into MyPanera 2.0, replacing an opaque surprise-and-delight model with 10 points per dollar, three tiers, and redemptions ranging from 250 points for a bagel to 2,000 for an entrée. MyPanera+ unlocks at $300 in annual spend. Chief Digital Officer Joshua Fine framed the change around member control: “Customers want choice. They want to be able to choose what they redeem. They want flexibility.”

Restaurant Dive, August 19, 2026

Our take: Surprise and delight is enjoyable to design and often difficult to sustain. Members cannot plan around a reward they cannot predict, so they quietly stop paying attention. Wiser Research put numbers to that this summer: 47% of consumers said they had disengaged from a loyalty program they once joined, and 62% of them pointed to benefits that were too hard or too slow to earn. Panera’s answer was structural. They gave 70 million people a visible ladder to climb and a predictable reason to come back, and they were willing to migrate the entire base to do it.

What this means for you: If a member cannot clearly tell you what they are working toward, you do not have true progression. You have a discount structure. The strongest loyalty programs give customers a reason to keep engaging, not just a reward for what they already did. Chat with an expert today to understand whether your program is driving incrementality or simply extending discounts for behavior that would have happened anyway.

03 – A journalist requested his McDonald’s loyalty data and got 515 pages back

WIRED’s Reece Rogers used California’s CCPA to request his file. McDonald’s returned 515 pages, including order history and model outputs predicting 2.16 visits over the following six weeks at $13.49 per order, along with a “customer attrition likelihood” scored at zero. Coverage since has run heavily negative on the surveillance framing.

WIRED, August 15, 2026 (syndicated version)

Our take: Most mature programs run models like these, so the modeling is not the story. What drew the reaction was the imbalance. The file showed a great deal of prediction and very little visible return to the member who generated it. Members will accept a brand that knows a lot about them when that knowing produces something they can feel: a better offer, a remembered preference, an invitation they actually wanted.

What this means for you: Run a value exchange audit. For every category of data your program collects, name the member-visible benefit it produces. Any row with a blank in that column is a liability waiting for a reporter with a privacy request.

04 – L.L.Bean turns brand purpose into loyalty engagement

L.L.Bean launched a simple, easy-to-use loyalty program that leans into the brand’s ethos and mission: to design products that make it easier for people to spend more time outside together. Rather than relying solely on points and discounts, L.L.Bean Rewards creates meaningful opportunities for customers to engage with the causes and communities that align with the brand.

L.L.Bean Rewards is free to join, earns members 1 point per dollar, and converts 150 points into $5 in Bean Bucks. Members also receive free shipping on orders over $50 and 10% off Outdoor Discovery programs.

The mechanic worth noting is what happens beyond the transaction: every purchase earns members one vote directing how $250,000 of L.L.Bean’s annual charitable giving is allocated across the National Park Foundation, YMCA, Mental Health America, and Appalachian Mountain Club.

This approach brings L.L.Bean’s core values of service, heritage, inclusion, and sustainability directly into the loyalty experience. The brand’s mission is centered on helping people take longer walks, have deeper talks, and spend more time outdoors. The loyalty program gives members a tangible way to participate in that mission.

Retail Dive, August 11, 2026

Our take: The points math may be simple, but the member action is meaningful. L.L.Bean turned something customers already care about into a repeatable engagement opportunity, and in doing so created preference signals that transaction data alone would never capture. A member who votes for the Appalachian Mountain Club four times in a row is telling you something about their identity, values, and interests, something their basket never will.

What this means for you: Find one behavior customers care about outside the cart and make it a first-class loyalty action. The strongest programs reward more than the purchase, and create an inclusive brand community.

See how the Loyalty Experience Platform captures those signals.

05 – Arko’s Q2 call: members spend twice as much while sentiment sits at historic lows

On Arko’s second quarter earnings call, CEO Arie Kotler reported that fas REWARDS members spent more than twice what nonmembers spent, with visit counts and basket sizes roughly 50% larger. Membership reached about 2.6 million, up nearly 10% year over year, against what the company described as historic lows in consumer sentiment.

C-Store Dive, August 12, 2026

Our take: This is the K-shaped consumer in a single data set. Shoppers are splitting baskets, hunting deals, and switching brands trip by trip, and members are the cohort still committing. One honest caveat: loyalty members self-select toward higher spend, so a member versus nonmember gap always flatters the program. The comparison that actually tells you something is member behavior now against member behavior twelve months ago.

What this means for you: Pull your member versus nonmember spread, then pull the year over year member trend underneath it. The second number tells you whether the program is changing behavior or simply collecting the customers who were already your best.

The Thread

Four of these five stories are brands reaching past the transaction. A running challenge. A charitable vote. A tier ladder members can actually see. A program built once and shaped for each market.

The fifth is what happens when a brand reaches past the transaction in only one direction. The prediction was sophisticated. The return to the member was not visible.

Whatever your members do that tells you who they are, your program should be able to see it, reward it, and report on what it changed.

Ready to look at your own program with that lens?

Annex Cloud works with lifestyle and identity-driven brands on loyalty built around the full range of member behavior, with the analytics to prove what it changed.

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