Category Archives for Hotels.
Hyatt has launched their partnership with Small Luxury Hotels of the World, offering points-earning, elite stay credit and redemption at some SLH member hotels. Along with that comes a new more expensive redemption category 8.
At this point only 54 hotels are participating — nearly all in Europe — though Hyatt says “we expect for more SLH properties to join the program in the coming months.”
IHG Rewards Club PointBreaks are live. These are hotels they’re offering discounted redemption prices for.
There are 13 hotels available for just 5000 points apiece. There are 39 hotels in the U.S. alone at the 10,000 point level. Doubling the redemption price clearly opens up more availability, though it’s sad how few properties are now offered for 5000 points when all PointBreaks used to be that lower price. Four Intercontinental properties are available though.
Marriott combined their Starwood Preferred Guest, Marriott Rewards, and Ritz-Carlton Rewards programs into a new unified program with the same currency and benefits on August 18th. All accounts were merged onto Marriott’s IT platform. However they retained separate program branding for legal reasons, I’m told related to their timeshare contracts.
In 2019 two major things are happening with Marriott Rewards: devaluing points and renaming the program.
There’s a video out of China which has been seen tens of millions of times over the past few days exposing the awful housekeeping practices at 14 hotels including Le Royal Méridien Shanghai; Park Hyatt in Beijing; Waldorf Astoria Shanghai; Ritz-Carlton Shanghai; and even the Aman Summer Palace.
Last year I wrote about Motel 6s in Phoenix working with ICE to get their guests deported. When Motel 6 would ‘leave the light on’ it was really the police siren light accompanying La Migra. Motel 6 Phoenix – Northern Avenue, Credit: Motel 6 At one Motel 6 the hotel would fax guests lists over to the police without even having been asked to do so. At another property “anyone who didn’t look American” would get reported to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The chain which was sold by Accor to Blackstone Group in 2012 has agreed to pay $7.6 million to settle a class action lawsuit for violating the privacy rights of its guests. Up to $5.6 million will go to Motel 6 guests who faced immigration removal proceedings after their personal information was shared.…
A loyalty program promises benefits in the future for your business today. It’s fundamentally based on trust. So one of the things I hate the most, even more than changes without notice, is changes that the program doesn’t even tell you about.
Marriott has just made changes to Platinum breakfast, participating properties, and earning points on spending at hotels when not a registered guest.
In yesterday’s earnings call Marriott CEO Arne Sorenson addressed how he thinks they’ve done integrating the Marriott and Starwood loyalty programs.
Just last week he referred to member frustrations as ‘noise around the edges’. He got into much greater detail with financial analysts.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
My own view is that I’m glad they’re reaching out to guests in advance and don’t mind lack of compensation, wish they’d also post online so people know what to consider when making plans, but also suggest they’ve got some good rates right now that are actually worth considering for peak season.
Indeed December weekend rates start under $200 a night and there’s oceanfront availability for the Christmas and New Year’s period for under $350.
GHA Discovery is the loyalty program for Omni hotels, Rydges, Alila (part of Two Roads Hospitality, which is being acquired by Hyatt), Kempinski, Anantara, Pan Pacific and more — 33 brands in total.
Discovery is an experiences program, not an earn and burn program. It’s all about status and recognition. Right now their top tier of elite status — Black — is available free on a trial basis. The offer may be restricted to cardholders in Middle East and Asia Pacific but I’ve already gotten 5000 American AAdvantage miles just by bouncing around and getting transferred a bit asking.
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 »
