Hotels

Category Archives for Hotels.

Grand Hyatt New York Will Be Torn Down

Feb 07 2019

The best thing about the property is that it’s often available less expensively than other full service properties in the area. Indeed searching for a room later in the month it was pricing at $171. The second best thing is the club lounge which features a large outdoor seating area.

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Hilton’s New Tool Tells You How Many Points Hotel Rewards Should Cost

Feb 06 2019

Hilton’s basic program is the least rewarding for spending at hotels and elite benefits are weak. They do not promise Diamonds upgrades to suites even if they’re empty, and they do not promise late check-out requests will be honored. Where Hilton Honors is useful is for the occasional guest who can get status just by having a credit card. There’s some chance this could change since they’re testing a confirmed suite upgrade benefit with some Diamonds, my hunch is if they launch it that holding a credit card alone won’t be enough to have this benefit. One of the most irritating things about Hilton Honors is its lack of transparency. They eliminated their award charts. Here’s what they published just a couple of years ago: Five years ago they effectively killed charts when they introduced…

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Marriott Sending Out Promotions for More Points and Faster Elite Status

outside marriott hotel
Feb 04 2019

Some members are really motivated by points (redemption) and others are motivated by better treatment (status). If a program offers members more than usual for taking certain actions during a specific period of time, they’re going to get more of those actions.

And you can test customer behavior, how much do you need to offer? which customers respond best to which kinds of offers? Here are four that Marriott is reportedly sending out.

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Huge Personal Milestone for Marriott Sorting Out the Mess Of Their New Program

Feb 04 2019

When Marriott launched their new program on August 18th they encouraged members to combine their accounts. They told you that you were keeping either a Starwood account or a Marriott account, but that wasn’t really true — all accounts were moved onto Marriott’s IT system.

If you were a Starwood member and a Marriott member previously you now had two Marriott accounts but for legal reasons they still displayed Starwood graphics for one of them.

I combined my accounts and somehow showed only three years at the Platinum level towards lifetime status.

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Hyatt Adds 56 Luxury Hotel Redemption Options to its Portfolio

large house
Jan 30 2019

Small Luxury Hotels of the World is a collection of independent properties, and it’s more of a booking relationship than a hotel chain. And Hyatt’s deal is something similar to what they have with MGM’s M life Rewards — let’s share customers, offering points-earning and redemption.

With over 500 hotels in 80 countries Small Luxury Hotels of the World held the potential to significantly grow the World of Hyatt footprint. In December they initially offered earning and redemption at 54 hotels. Now they’re adding 56 more properties.

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Getting Non-Compliant Hotels to Honor Program Benefits: the Latest Victory

Jan 29 2019

Hotel loyalty programs face a unique challenge that airlines don’t. Airlines set the rules and provide the product directly. Hotels have to get properties which are often owned and even managed separately to comply, with benefits like upgrades delivered consistently by individual employees at a front desk perhaps thousands of miles away. They rely on individual hotels and even employees to comply.

As a result it can be like playing whack-a-mole with individual properties. And with hotels around the world, members may be experiencing things on the ground that programs don’t know about. Or if they see an issue raised in passing it may not resonate with all of the issues they’re facing.

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Hyatt Openng 40 West Coast Hotels Over Next Two Years

japanese style room
Jan 29 2019

Hyatt announced today that they would open 40 hotels on the US West Coast by 2021. They’re really just describing the current pipeline and there are a few things to note. We know about several of these properties already.

This significant growth in Hyatt’s footprint, however they’re stretching to get to their 40 and limited service is the name of the game.

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Marriott’s One Shot Deal For Lifetime 75 Night Status Has Posted

alexander lifetime status
Jan 27 2019

Under the new Marriott program all lifetime elites kept their current lifetime status from either program and everyone had until December 31 to earn lifetime status under old program rules despite the new program requiring more elite nights than Starwood had insisted upon and no longer required minimum points for status as Marriott had.

One quirk of the new program though is that it will not offer lifetime status higher than Platinum (50 nights). Legacy Marriott lifetime Platinums were 75 night platinums so got to keep lifetime 75 night elite. Starwood members with similar lifetime activity nearly lost their cookies over this.

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Drama-Laden Parker Meridien New York Rebrands Again, Now a Hyatt

hotel bed
Jan 23 2019

When Starwood picked up Le Meridien hotels they integrated most properties into Starwood Preferred Guest but the Parker Meridien properties in New York and Palm Springs were noticeably absent (presumably not wanting to pay the 5% fee).

During the depths of the Great Recession though they realized they needed the marketing muscle and joined the program in late 2008. They allegedly began stealing from Starwood Preferred Guest almost immediately.

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