Category Archives for Hotels.
The highlights of the Hyatt Regency San Francisco are its Guinness world record-setting lobby, the largest in the world, and its club lounge which is the hotel’s former revolving top floor restaurant.
Less appealing, perhaps, are the new 185 square foot rooms that the hotel has constructed out of hallway space on the east end of each guest room floor.
Tired: Hotels ‘for millennials’ featuring tiny rooms that lack desks, where hopefully guests escape claustrophobia to ‘social spaces’ spending money on food and beverage. However millennials as a class don’t have as much disposable income as older generations, and their digital life includes ordering in more interesting food and beverage than the hotel provides.
Wired: Hotels catering to the ‘new affluent’ who prefer experiences over things, so don’t mind small rooms and are sufficiently lacking in experience that they’ll allow the hotel to curate their food and beverage choices in those same ‘social spaces’.
IHG Rewards Club – the loyalty program for Intercontinental, Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn and related brands — is offering a 100% bonus on purchased points through December 31. This applies to purchases of 7000 or more points.
At a 100% bonus purchases of 26,000 points or more cost just $0.005 apiece which is the lowest price I see them sell points for. Oddly purchases of 26,000 points is cheaper than 25,000 points because the cost per point drops. I believe the points are worth slightly more than this.
Several days ago I flagged the possibility that Marriott would be eliminating the great annual offer of 10 elite nights for booking a meeting at a hotel. Before the Marriott and Starwood programs were combined Marriott used to let you earn 10 elite nights per meeting with no annual cap.
Word on the street was that this offer would be going away entirely. And indeed a leaked internal communication from Marriott bears this out.
Marriott did not deny that the 10 elite nights for any event benefit is changing, although it’s not clear when or what the change will be (they simply promise to tell us if they make changes).
My read is this: if you want to take advantage of this opportunity in 2020 it might be a good idea to do it early in the year.
You’re definitely going to want to register for Hilton’s new promotion and do it now even if you don’t expect to stay at Hiltons because you’ll never remember to go back later to do it when you wind up with an unexpected stay.
Meanwhile Hilton is back selling points at the lowest price Honors points are ever offered – half a cent apiece through a 100% bonus on purchase points valid through December 28.
There were recording devices found in guest rooms at the Hyatt Regency Minneapolis. They were discovered by students on a school trip. Police are investigating the cameras.
I believe major chain hotels – as a brand standard – should conduct regular sweeps to ensure guest privacy.
Back in March we learned that $7000 per night all-inclusive North Island in the Seychelles would be joining Marriott’s Luxury Collection and I confirmed that it would become part of the Bonvoy program for earning and redemption.
Marriott updated their program terms to allow for redemptions that cost more than category 8 high season – because we were never going to book this place for just 100,000 points per night. We can only hope though that, having made the change, they aren’t tempted to expand the pool of properties “off award chart.”
There are some incredible hotels in the SLH portfolio, and it’s cool to be able to use Hyatt points for stays (though elite benefits don’t apply). Be careful on paid stays that you don’t overpay booking through Hyatt.
American Airlines ConciergeKey members receive Hyatt Globalist status. It seems like Hyatt is extending a similar reciprocal benefit to some of their top tier Globalist members. Surprisingly, these Globalists – rather than rarified Courtesy Card members – are being given American Airlines Executive Platinum for 2020 (expires January 2021).
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
