Monthly Archives

Monthly Archives for October 2018.

Marriott CEO: Your Frustrations are Just “Noise Around the Edges”

trump
Oct 27 2018

When Marriott acquired Starwood, Marriott Rewards leadership expected to adopt Starwood’s SPG IT platform. They weren’t happy with what Marriott had and were looking into new solutions. Why not just take Starwood’s, after all SPG was viewed as the better loyalty program?

Once they got into things they learned the limitations of the Starwood system. The transition from Starwood to Marriott didn’t go smoothly however.

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JetBlue Founder’s New Airline Launches in 2020 and Won’t Have a Phone Number

jetblue plane
Oct 27 2018

Back in June word leaked that JetBlue founder Dave Neeleman is launching a new airline in the U.S. He has an order for 60 Airbus A220s with options for 60 more.

He says there will no be option to call customer service and no way to check in with an agent at the airport. It’s app-only, but contends the name won’t matter, he “could call this airline crap and people will love it.”

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Hilton Honors is Moving to a New Database, Be Prepared for Outage

toiletries
Oct 26 2018

Earlier today Hilton shared that they are updating the CRM platform they use to run the Honors loyalty program. They’re going to take systems offline October 30 and into October 31 (“depending on your time zone”). This surprises me, loyalty programs almost always make these transitions over a weekend.

Hilton assures that “existing reservations will not be impacted.” Let’s hope everything goes as quickly as Honors expects. But get all of your Hilton business done before October 30 and assume it could take longer than a day before you have access to your account back.

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Wyndham Expected to Double Award Price of Best Properties

wydham on beach
Oct 26 2018

Five years ago most Wyndham properties could be booked for a maximum of 16,000 points. They jacked up award prices to as much as 40,000 points (after pricing some properties as high as 45,000 and 50,000 points).

And then they introduced a new flat redemption rate of 15,000 points per night in 2015. This was hailed as a big decrease in pricing for their best properties, when really is was reverting to what pricing had been just two years earlier — and a big increase in prices for lower-end hotels.

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