An interesting twitter thread asks for the ‘cheapest thing you do’ and a business broker makes the claim that “points cards” for hotel chains “usually give you lobby privileges.” That’s simply not true, although people use hotel lobbies for meetings and to work all the time having nothing to do with their loyalty program memberships or co-brand rewards cards.
I hold points cards for every major hotel chain. That usually gives you lobby privileges.
— David C Barnett SmallBiz & Deal Making SMB (@DBarnettMoncton) June 28, 2023
Hotel rewards credit cards, program membership, and elite status do not come with ‘lobby privileges’. There used to be one exception.
Radisson used to have a program in Europe, Mideast and Africa called “Our World, Your Lounge” where elite members were welcome any time in their lobbies to use the wifi and have a free coffee or soft drink. That ended a dozen years ago. But it was true hospitality.
In practice, if you look like you belong, you can use a hotel lobby without being kicked out. And some brands even have open and available soft drinks to serve yourself. Indeed, if you look like you belong, you’re someone who frequents hotels and feel comfortable walking through the lobby rather than looking nervous and standing out, you could even partake in free breakfast from limited-service hotels without being a guest and even walk into a resort and use the pool when you’re not a guest, though pool facilities may be locked to card access so you’d have to follow another guest in.
But why not offer this as a perk of a premium card? The challenge is managing capacity, and that individual hotels are generally not owned by the chain so would need to be compensated. But it’s like a built-in WeWork option, and could be funded by the card issuer. There might be too many people taking advantage of it if it were a benefit of the base consumer card, but bundling it with a $500+ annual fee co-brand would also screen for guests who can afford dropping $500 on a credit card annual fee.
Could this be a winner of an idea?
(HT: Hans Mast)
1. Business pundits on twitter and linkedin are insufferable.
Especially when they type like this.
You know what I’m saying?
They think it’s a neat way to convince people to click Read More.
But all they reveal is that they’re morons who can’t produce engaging content organically, so they resign themselves to cheap tricks.
—
2. Hotel membership cards ought to unlock all lobby bathrooms. It’s a huge pain to find public bathrooms in major cities. Hotel lobbies are increasingly locking their public bathrooms, which I never thought made any sense, because if you have a keycard, you can just use the bathroom in your own room.
Having a credit card give access to a basic set of amenities would result in that amenity being overrun, crowded, and losing whatever value it may have had. Case in point: airport lounges.
Forget the status element, I’d happily pay $6 for a coffee and a doubletree cookie and to use the wifi. I’ve heard execs talk about monitizing the lobby among frequent guests who are brand loyal when they aren’t currently staying.
But then they shoot themselves in the foot by offering crappy prepackaged items, marking the price up 2x and only being open until noon.
I don’t get it.
What?!? – no one mentioned the Citigold Lounges where you can get a cup of coffee and do some laptop work on wifi. Of course they’re only open M-F during banking hours.
Choice brand hotels in the Nordic countries still have “lobby privileges” for their program elites, and that includes a cup of coffee or tea for free once a day or something like that. Not sure if they had this before Radisson had it, but they still have this as an elite status benefit for their bank card holders and other program elites.
But if just wanting to work in a hotel’s public areas during daytime working hours and early evening hours, it seems to me that most big hotels with a lot of conference/meeting traffic don’t really care that some people do this “lobby privileges” thing. But then it wouldn’t necessarily include free coffee/tea.
I was at a pool in Providence, RI quite a while ago. They made everyone leave the pool and show that they were guests. While the hotel had a certain ethnic group they believe to be the offenders. they were equal opportunity enough to require everyone to comply. But, this is what happens when people let anyone into the pool