$26 buys you four months of both Marriott Platinum and Hilton Gold if you’re in China – and challenges to keep the status for at least another year.
Alibaba is China’s Amazon + eBay + PayPal. Their online travel site is Fliggy, which has six elite tiers in its loyalty program. Members at tiers 4-6 get Marriptt Platinum and Hilton gold elite status challenges. A reader writes,
There is a partner-sanctioned route here that prices access to Marriott Bonvoy Platinum at RMB 188 (about US$25) for roughly four months, and it comes with an eight-night challenge that pushes Platinum out by about a year or more. The same purchase also includes Hilton Honors Gold on a similar four-month clock, with an eight-night path to extend as well. This isn’t a gray-market reseller; it sits inside the official partner ecosystem via Fliggy, Alibaba’s travel platform.
In the past, you could manufacture “F4” status for $10 – $20. And there were reports last summer at some Marriott hotels that 75% of check-ins were by Platinum members or higher.
Right now, Fliggy will sell you F4 status for 188 RMB for about $26.
- People generating unearned status
- Bonvoy elites no longer have an incentive to stay to requalify for status since they can just buy it cheap. They can even merge the new account they create for this with their existing one.
- And the benefits get diluted for ‘legitimate’ members.
Interestingly, the image headline here says: “万豪120天向金卡体验” which I believe translats to “Marriott 120-day Gold Card Trial.” But this is a Platinum offer, not Gold. The black card pictured has “尊贵白金卡” which means “Prestigious Platinum Card” and benefits listed (free breakfast, room upgrade, 4pm checkout) match Bonvoy Platinum. Those are going to be some busy hotel club lounges and breakfast restaurants!
Executive Lounge, JW Marriott Shanghai at Tomorrow Square, Credit: Marriott
Marriott sees they’re getting plenty of new signups through Fliggy, when they’re getting plenty of short-term elites – and the same members are often opening new accounts over and over as well. Plus, the status is aimed at the Chinese market – but it follows guests everywhere they go
I’ve always said you never want to enter the Chinese consumer market unless you are really sure you know what you’re doing, and only then with local partners with a real investment who know what they are doing.
The Chinese text above reads “Marriott 120-day Platinum Card Experience.” Because the character 白 was written in a stylized font, the translator misread it as the different character 向. It actually says “Platinum Card.”
I’d rather they provide a room with a built-in (non-local) VPN…and “real” bacon for breakfast.
On a mostly unrelated note, in 2011 I stayed at a hotel in Changzhou (Jiangsu province). My laptop had just gone kaput, so I inquired if the hotel would be able to lend me a device. Sure enough, 45 minutes after checking-in, some staff brought in a desktop.
It didn’t really matter if it was bugged, because I couldn’t check email anyway. Most likely, I just used youku to begrudgingly watch Under Siege and Under Siege 2.
The problem must be “translats” instead of “translates”. The company Translats is an official forwarding agent on the Latvian and Lithuanian railroads and is a member of the Latvian Association of Freight Forwarders.
That’s what Xi said…