One&Only Review 2026: Record Score of 83, 13 Resorts and No Points Programme

One&Only is eleventh of the twenty brands on our luxury hotel brand hierarchy, at 83 out of 100: 13 resorts open under Kerzner International Limited, with no room rate published outside its own booking engine and no points programme that we could find. This record is the evidence file behind that score. It sets out what One&Only and Kerzner publish about the brand, how the MICHELIN Guide rates the resorts we could read, what could not be found, and where our other pages and One&Only's own figures disagree.

Verified 26 September 2026 · oneandonlyresorts.com (destinations, our story, about, private homes, offers and resort pages) · kerzner.com and kerznercommunications.com · the MICHELIN Guide · our luxury hotel brand hierarchy of 7 September 2026

How One&Only scores: 83 out of 100

One&Only scores 83 out of 100, eleventh of twenty brands: 17 of 20 for rate band, 20 of 25 for consistency, 17 of 20 for service depth, 12 of 15 for food and drink and 17 of 20 for privacy and scale. The points are the luxury hotel brand hierarchy's of 7 September 2026, carried unchanged; under each criterion is what we could read on 26 September 2026. The clearest addition beyond the hierarchy's own text is our sweep of the MICHELIN Guide's listings for all 13 open resorts, ten of them with a Key, and One&Only Nyungwe House's move out of the brand into Kerzner's rare finds portfolio.

One&Only publishes which resorts are open, which are coming next and who owns the brand. It publishes little else a guest could check before booking: no room rate outside its own booking engine, no staff numbers, no room count on any of its own pages, and no Forbes Travel Guide page that opens beyond its own quoted claim for Reethi Rah. The MICHELIN Guide fills part of that gap: ten of the 13 open resorts hold a Key, from One&Only Mandarina's Three, the brand's highest, down to One each at Cape Town and Aesthesis.

The evidence record

The record holds 19 facts about One&Only, each with its source and grade. Grade A means the company's own site or terms; grade B means a rating body such as Forbes Travel Guide or the MICHELIN Guide, a registry or major press; grade C means a secondary source not confirmed elsewhere. Every line was read on 26 September 2026 unless its source says otherwise.

Who owns One&Only?

One&Only is owned by Kerzner International Limited, the name printed in the copyright line of every One&Only page we opened; no page names a chief executive or a head office address.

Kerzner International dates itself "Since 1993" on its communications site, though no One&Only page states the brand's own founding year or founder. Kerzner's leadership page exists but renders no executive names to our reader, and its executive-team page carries the heading "Meet our Leaders" with "No results found" beneath it; its careers and who-we-are pages return the same gap. No stock listing was found on any page opened. Kerzner's brands page names three other collections alongside One&Only: Atlantis, SIRO and Rare Finds, plus the Mazagan resort, with no count given for any of them.

One&Only Nyungwe House, in Rwanda, has left the brand: its own page says it "has joined our rare finds portfolio", now trading as Nyungwe Tea Forest Resort, and states plainly that this is "not a change in quality, ownership, management, or team." The MICHELIN Guide's listing still names the hotel One&Only Nyungwe House, with Two Keys. This record excludes it from every One&Only count below.

How many resorts does One&Only have?

One&Only prints no total of its own; its pages show 13 resorts open, from Moonlight Basin in Montana to Gorilla's Nest in Rwanda, and four more in the pipeline. Six resorts are named on the destinations page and seven more only on their own pages, all read on 26 September 2026.

Our own independent hotel group index counts "11 hotels" for One&Only, short of the 13 this record finds once Cape Town, Reethi Rah, Le Saint Géran, One Za'abeel, The Palm, Royal Mirage and Gorilla's Nest are added to the six on the destinations page. One&Only'sprivate homes page calls its houses at Mandarina, Hudson Valley, Moonlight Basin and Le Saint Géran "now available to purchase," not open, while Courchevel's homes are "coming soon" for a resort not due until 2030; our branded residences index nonetheless counts four of these residences as open. Whether a guest should book a resort in its first season, such as the four above, is weighed in should you book a brand-new luxury hotel.

How One&Only's resorts are rated by Forbes Travel Guide and the MICHELIN Guide

One&Only says Reethi Rah holds a Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star rating, the only Forbes claim we could find; the MICHELIN Guide lists all 13 open resorts and gives ten of them a Key, from One at Cape Town and Aesthesis to Three at Mandarina.

Forbes Travel Guide grades hotels Recommended, Four-Star or Five-Star; every Forbes page we tried for a One&Only resort redirected to the Forbes home page, unreadable to our reader, so Reethi Rah's rating rests on One&Only's own word, grade A, not on a Forbes page we could open ourselves. The MICHELIN Guide's Los Cabos and Cape Town city listings show Palmilla's Two Keys and Cape Town's One Key; the two hotels' own MICHELIN pages show no distinction line to our reader. The other eight Keys appear directly on each resort's own MICHELIN page: Mandarina, Le Saint Géran, Reethi Rah, Portonovi, The Palm, Gorilla's Nest, Moonlight Basin and Aesthesis. None of the listings prints a year for the award.

How to book One&Only, and whether any perks come with it

One&Only runs no points programme that we could find; it sells through its own site with percentage discounts and free nights, and through Kerzner's trade-only portal for advisers.

The offers page lists packages resort by resort rather than a rate card: Kéa Island at "20% off when you book in advance," Mandarina at "four nights for the price of three," Moonlight Basin with a "complimentary third or fourth night." Kerzner's Travel Partner Resources site serves travel advisers across its brands, One&Only included, rather than guests directly, and no page we opened named a preferred-partner scheme, Amex Fine Hotels + Resorts or Virtuoso participation for One&Only. Our own Booking.com vs direct audit found One&Only Palmilla listed there in villas only, no rooms. The cards that carry Amex Fine Hotels + Resorts benefits are compared in Amex Platinum vs Chase Sapphire Reserve, and luxury travel cards more generally in our guide to the best luxury travel credit cards.

For a traveller who collects hotel points, the trade is plain: no One&Only page we opened offers points or status of any kind. The chain programmes with status worth holding are compared in Hilton Diamond vs Marriott Titanium vs Hyatt Globalist and the hotel status match guide, and the case for the best resort over the best points balance is made in you do not owe any brand your loyalty.

Who One&Only suits, and who it does not

One&Only suits a traveller who wants a private resort in a single striking location and will book without a published rate or chain points; it suits less well anyone who wants a city hotel, a confirmed staff ratio, or status that carries elsewhere.

Its resorts sit in one place each rather than a city grid: Big Sky, Montana, for Moonlight Basin, with the wider choice of mountain trips covered in best ski destinations; the Maldives, for Reethi Rah, where our overwater villa guide compares the villas on offer; and Rwanda, where Gorilla's Nest is the smallest resort we could count, at 21 rooms by the MICHELIN Guide's figure. One&Only's own pages name no staff ratio or check-in style at any of them. Four brands scored above and below it on our hierarchy are set side by side in Aman vs Six Senses vs Rosewood vs Belmond.

Guests weighing a private home over a resort room can compare the two in villa vs hotel; the four residences named on One&Only's own private homes page are covered above and in our branded residences index.

One&Only: the decisions that come next

Which brand, whether to wait for one of the four resorts still to come, how to book and whether a private home suits better than a room are the next decisions, and each has its own page here.

Where One&Only stands on Uncompromised Travel

One&Only appears on five Uncompromised Travel pages with a position or a figure, and holds a numbered rank on one of them.

Alternatives to One&Only to compare

The nearest alternatives on the same rubric are the brands scored just above and below One&Only: Mandarin Oriental, The Peninsula, Belmond and Six Senses. All four are covered in their own records too.

What this record does not show

Eight things a guest would want could not be found or verified for One&Only. Supplying a verifiable source closes a gap; it changes the evidence, never the rubric.

What changed at One&Only, 2025 to 2026

One&Only's own pages date little: Nyungwe House's move out of the brand and Jeddah's pipeline listing carry no day of their own, so both are dated to when we read them, while three more resorts carry opening years to 2030.