Experience-based rewards have become one of loyalty’s preferred answers to discount fatigue. But loyalty still tends to define them too narrowly.

For many programmes, experience-based rewards still mean VIP events, hospitality, early access, exclusive drops, or branded gamification. That still has value, but it reflects an older idea of what an experience-based reward is supposed to be: occasional, physical, and premium-coded.

That view is becoming outdated. Experience-based rewards are changing form. They are becoming more digital, more repeatable, more immediate, and more closely tied to everyday consumer behaviour.

The loyalty data already points in that direction. Antavo’s 2026 findings show that 49.1% of consumers feel rewards take too long to earn, 41.1% are frustrated by expiry, 38.9% find rewards unattractive, and 74% quietly disengage within two months. That is not only a loyalty value problem. It is also a loyalty format problem. Too much loyalty value still arrives too late, in forms that feel distant from how people actually live.

Digital entertainment helps explain what is changing. Deloitte’s 2025 data estimates Gen Z already spends 6.9 hours per day with media and entertainment, versus 6.3 hours per day for Millennials. Within Gen Z’s day, that includes 1.3 hours of streaming video, 1.4 hours of social media, 1.0 hour of user-generated content, 1.1 hours of video games, and 1.0 hour of music. That is approximately 48.3 hours per week for Gen Z and 44.1 hours per week for Millennials.

That is why loyalty needs a bigger view of experience-based rewards.

Premium digital entertainment is not a niche perk. Streaming and gaming alone already reach 80 to 85 percent of the adult population across Western markets. It occupies a very large share of consumer attention and everyday life. And there is an important difference worth naming. A brand mini-game or gamification mechanic layers onto visits that are already happening for other reasons. It does not independently draw consumers back. Premium digital entertainment can, because the reward itself already has value in the consumer’s own life — separate from the brand relationship entirely. One is a feature of the brand experience. The other is a category people already seek out on their own terms.

For digital natives, that goes beyond habit or preference. Digital entertainment is part of how identity is built and expressed. What you watch, listen to, and play is not just how you spend time — it is part of who you are. A reward that connects to that is operating at a different level of relevance than loyalty has typically worked with. That idea deserves fuller treatment, and it will.

That distinction matters strategically. Loyalty programmes that have built compelling proprietary digital experiences tend to be exceptional cases — brands like Nike or Starbucks that already occupy a meaningful place in consumers’ daily lives and identities. Their digital products succeed because the brand does, not the other way around. For the vast majority of loyalty programmes, that level of brand embeddedness does not exist, and a branded digital experience cannot manufacture it. Which means replicating that model is not a realistic path for most programmes.

The next generation of experience-based rewards will not be defined only by hospitality, exclusive events, or branded gamification. It will also be defined by rewards that are easier to use, closer to identity, and more native to how digital consumers already spend time.

The future of loyalty experience-based rewards is not just more fun. It is more relevant forms of consumer value.

The harder question — how programmes actually structure and deliver that value at scale — is where the real work begins.

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