Samir passes along a tip reported by Barbara DeLollis that Priority Club is partnering with TopGuest and will provide 50 Priority Club points every time a guest ‘checks in’ at a Priority Club hotel property (eg Holiday Inn, Intercontinental, Crowne Plaza).
You don’t actually have to stay at the hotel, checking in in this sense means showing up and registering your location. You can drive into the parking lot and leave.
MilesQuest thinks this “certainly is worthwhile to sign up for the program and download an app like FourSquare to take advantage.”
I’m not so sure. I value a Priority Club point at about 3/5ths of a penny apiece, although some redemptions can leverage points much more effectively than that like the occasional PointBreaks redemption of 5000 points for a free Intercontinental night. But with Priority Club’s cash and points option you can effectively buy 10,000 points for $60 so it’s hard to ‘value’ the points at more than 3/5ths of a cent (as they can be acquired at that price).
That valuation makes 50 points worth 30 cents. Now, there’s a Holiday Inn down the street from my office. And I could drive into the parking lot every day on the way to work, and after 300 days have a free night at many a Holiday Inn. Still, I’m not quite sure the equation works out for me. And it’s certainly not ‘certainly’ worthwhile! Fun nonetheless, perhaps.
In my case there’s a Holiday Inn less than a block from where I live, and I can use my iPhone Yelp app to “check in” from the comfort of my own home. Of course, this still requires me to remember to check in, which I give less than a 2% chance of happening on any given day. I’d already managed to forget to do so today until I read your blog…
I’m not sure that your statement “will provide 50 Priority Club points every time a guest ‘checks in’” is correct. It reads “will be given up to 50 hotel loyalty points per day when they ‘check-in’ ” with the key phrase being “up to.”
So how many points would i get, 5? 10? 20? this sounds a bit too murky to pique my interest.
Well,
I think the real point of this is to just “check-in” when you actually check into the hotel. I.e. if you’re going to be there anyways, might as well just check in to get the 50 extra points. I don’t think it’s worth it to go out of your way, but i guess if it’s on the way, or better yet, right next to where you work, might as well!