Gt Tested Awards Closed: How Voting Works & How to Win

A national travel survey, not a hometown best-of ballot

Most award ballots covered on this site ask a city or county to pick its favorite local businesses. The GT Tested Reader Survey Awards work differently at every level. The organizer is Global Traveler, a travel magazine published by FXExpress Publications from Pennsylvania, and the ballot does not ask readers to choose among local shops. It asks frequent business and luxury travelers to name the best airlines, hotels, loyalty programs and travel-related products, anywhere in the world they have flown or stayed.

The host is the magazine's own site rather than any outside polling service, which changes what a voter sees. There is no poll widget with a candidate list to click through. The 2025 ballot was open-ended, running both in subscriber copies of the magazine and online, so a voter wrote in choices instead of selecting from fixed options. The page a reader reaches today, at globaltravelerusa.com/gt-tested-awards-closed/, is the closed-ballot notice for the cycle that ended on August 31, 2025.

That contrast matters for anyone comparing this page with its Pennsylvania neighbours. A reader-choice contest such as Best of Philly (Philadelphia Magazine) lives or dies on local turnout in a single metro. This survey draws on a national readership of travelers, and the publisher's Pennsylvania base is where the magazine sits, not where the voting audience is confined. The table below sets out the fixed facts.

The dated record: editions, the 2025 window and what is unpublished

The confirmed edition years for this program are 2020, 2025 and 2026. The magazine also traces the awards further back: Global Traveler's inaugural awards were celebrated in 2004, which makes this one of the longer-running reader surveys in the travel press. The program is annual, and each cycle follows the same broad shape, a ballot that opens in December and a winners list published the following December.

The best-documented window belongs to the 2025 cycle. Open-ended ballots ran in subscriber copies of Global Traveler and online from December 12, 2024 to August 31, 2025, a span of roughly nine months. That is far longer than a typical local best-of vote, which usually runs for a few weeks, and it reflects how a reader survey works: travelers vote as they travel, across a whole season, rather than in a single push.

What the organizer has not published on the closed page is the fine print. No category roster beyond the broad airline, hotel, loyalty and product groupings appears there, no per-voter limit is stated, and no eligibility rules for voters are printed anywhere on that page; confirm on the live ballot each cycle. The results step is dated, though: the closed page tells readers to check back in December for a list of winners, which is when each cycle's outcome becomes public on the magazine's own site.

How a supporter votes when the ballot is live

Right now there is nothing to vote in. The ballot URL leads to a closed notice, so the first literal step for a supporter is to read that page and note the two things it does say: voting is closed, and a list of winners follows in December. No form, no login and no category list is offered at this address today.

When the next cycle opens, the mechanic is the write-in style the 2025 ballot used. Because the ballot was open-ended, a supporter did not click a candidate button; the ballot asked frequent business and luxury travelers to name their preferred airline, hotel, loyalty program or travel product in each category they had experience with. The ballot ran in two places at once, in subscriber copies of the magazine and online at the magazine's site, so a reader could vote on paper or on screen.

Practical points for a supporter planning ahead. The ballot stays open for months, so there is no deadline panic of the kind a two-week local contest creates. The ballot spans airlines, hotels, loyalty programs and travel-related products, so a supporter who wants to back a specific hotel or airline should be ready to find it among those groupings. And because no per-voter rule is published on the closed page, a supporter who plans to return repeatedly should read the terms on the live ballot first rather than assume a daily-return habit is welcome. The magazine's own pages are where those rules can be confirmed.

Where this ballot sits among its Pennsylvania neighbours

Every sibling program on this site shares a state with this one and almost nothing else. The Best of Berks (Berks County Living Magazine) ballot, the Best of the 'Burgh ballot, and the Best of the Lehigh Valley (Lehigh Valley Style) contest are all geographic reader-choice votes: local readers pick local businesses, and the winner is whichever name turns out the most hometown support.

The GT Tested Reader Survey Awards invert that. Global Traveler's readers are not voting for a hometown mechanic or a neighborhood cafe; they are naming the airline they flew most and the hotel chain they trust on the road, and the candidates are global brands. The Bucks County & Chester County Readers' Choice and the Erie Reader Best of Erie ballots follow the same local pattern as the rest of the sibling set.

Two consequences follow for a supporter or a nominated brand. First, the audience is different: a local contest can be won by mobilizing one town, while this survey is spread across a national travel readership, so concentrated local effort carries less weight here. Second, the calendar is different: the siblings run short seasonal windows, while this ballot has historically stayed open from December into late summer. A tactic tuned for a hometown best-of vote does not transfer directly to a nine-month open-ended reader survey, and the organizer's rules, not a local contest's habits, govern what is allowed.

Strengthening support in a reader survey

Support in this program means reaching frequent travelers, because they are the only voters the ballot counts. A brand nominated here does best when its regular customers, the people who already fly its flights or stay in its hotels, know the ballot is open and fill it in during the long December-to-summer window. That long window changes the play compared with a short local contest: reminders can go out with booking confirmations, loyalty statements and stay follow-ups across months instead of cramming into a final week.

What the organizer says about outside help is not printed on the closed page, so no claim can be made either way about purchased support here; the live ballot's terms are the only authority. For a general grounding in how support campaigns work on public ballots, read how to get more votes online, and for the service side, see buy award votes. Either way, the first step is the same: wait for the next ballot to open, read its rules, then plan around the real window.