North Island, one of the world’s top private island resorts in the Seychelles, announced it was joining Marriott’s The Luxury Collection. There are only 11 rooms (starting at 5000 square feet) and rates can hover above $7000 a night.

So it was bizarre to see them sign up with Marriott’s Luxury Collection. I didn’t cover the news that this is expected to happen a couple of weeks ago when it first came out because, as Lucky from One Mile at a Time observed,

• It would be shocking to see rooms bookable here at standard points rates.
  

  I can’t imagine this hotel will be bookable at standard award rates. 10 of the 11 rooms here are “standard” rooms, and there’s simply no way they’ll be bookable per Marriott’s standard award chart. I mean, it could be nice, but that’s just implausible.

• Not all Marriott hotels participate in Bonvoy “like Ritz-Carlton Reserve and BVLGARI.”

Credit: North Island

So joining Luxury Collection alone doesn’t mean participating in Marriott’s loyalty program. What I was waiting on then was to confirm that — yes, indeed — North Island “will be in the program” according to a Marriott spokesperson.

We don’t know exactly what that will mean. I cannot imagine that, though Lucky suggests 10 of the hotel’s 11 properties are ‘standard’, that those rooms will all be bookable on points.

If it will be possible to book the hotel at the the top category 8 points price, it will almost certainly mean redefining room types. A standard room does not mean the most common room type. Last week I outlined How Marriott award availability restrictions actually work.

For all-suite, all-club, and all-villa hotel properties there is no minimum number of rooms that have to be bookable on points, redemptions can be limited to the lowest room category no matter how many rooms that entails. So differentiating a single room downward is enough to make just one room reserve-able with Marriott points.

What we know is that the hotel is expected to participate. That’s big progress considering it won’t be entering the program until the end of the year (and even then that could get pushed). We do not know,

• If Marriott will introduce a new higher redemption tier to go along with it
• Whether there will be more than a single room available

Credit: North Island

If Marriott charged 80,000 points per night here and didn’t limit inventory you’d expect 10 rooms to be booked by Bonvoy members every night of the year. And since the hotel would be full and getting reimbursed around their average daily room rate, that would cost the loyalty program a ton. It’s reasonable to expect some guardrails around this.

By the way inclusions for all paid guests have to be honored on award nights and this hotel offers,

 

• Breakfasts, lunches, dinners and all alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks plus cocktails (with the exception of high end premium wines and champagnes on the reserve list)
• All scuba diving courses, scuba diving activities and snorkeling in and around the North Island & Silhouette dive sites
• All activities including sea kayaking, surfing, stand-up paddle boarding, bicycles, sunset cruises, guided walks and fully equipped gymnasium
• A complimentary welcome treatment at the Spa
• Daily complimentary group yoga classes every morning
• Shore based fishing on North Island and half day fishing trips
• The use of one “North Island Buggy” per villa for the duration of your stay
• In-villa wireless Internet connection
• LaundrySo even if just one room here gets offered, or there’s a new redemption category to cover the property, it’s something to get excited about Marriott Bonvoy over, goodness knows there haven’t been enough of those lately.

  As for Lucky’s question about whether Marriott can add any value to this property,

  There are a lot of hotels where a loyalty program can impact whether or not a guest chooses to stay there; but does that really apply to a hotel that’s almost $10,000 per night? Are George Clooney and Prince William really closet points collectors (well, George Clooney outside of his Ryan Bingham role in “Up In The Air”)?

  I’d just suggest that,

  • We don’t know what sort of deal they’ve negotiated with Marriott from a cost perspective
  • Guests Marriott delivers are likely to come less expensively than those delivered by Virtuoso travel agents
  • There’s little question inclusion in Marriott’s marketing channels raises visibility of the property, after all we wouldn’t be talking about it otherwise

  Maybe points earning isn’t what moves the needle here, even if points-earning is what brings people into the channel and exposes them to the property which they eventually book. And if they’re not already selling out, filling an incremental room on points for which they earn their average daily room rate from the program when they’re otherwise full could make sense.

  And if the pitch is pay for a night here and earn 1-2 nights at the St. Regis Maldives as a reward based on room rates at North Island and redemption rates in the Maldives and at other category 8 hotels, that actually does seem rather compelling!