Category Archives for Hotels.
Bibles have been in hotel rooms for over 100 years, dating back at least to 1908 at the Superior Hotel in Superior, Montana. The Gideons, which was formed by two men sharing a hotel room in 1898, give them away for free.
The average life of a hotel room bible is six years. Guests take them, even though they say ‘thou shalt not steal’ inside.
Since announcing the new Marriott program in April there’s been inconsistent information about breakfast, about lounge access, and about redemptions for Starwood properties that previously charged double points compared to the standard award chart.
They haven’t been ready for prime time for instance they haven’t shared what would happen with travel packages redeemed prior to the start of the new program but where award certificates hadn’t yet been used for a reservation. And they hadn’t even published the terms and conditions for the new program. They don’t plan to share those things until the program launch on August 18.
Existing travel packages have been an outstanding questions. Members who redeem for a travel package, transfer points to miles, and hold onto the hotel stay certificate to use later have wondered ‘since Marriott’s award charts are changing, and my certificates are for a specific redemption category, what’s going to happen? what hotels will I be able to use them for?’
Marriott is sharing that travel packages are going to be adjusted so that they will be used on ‘similarly valued’ hotel categories.
Marriott is launching a new program August 18th which will be the same for all of Marriott Rewards, Starwood Preferred Guest, and Ritz-Carlton Rewards.
Accessing frequent guest accounts, and even making reservations, is expected to be offline most of that day. In addition Marriott Rewards and Ritz-Carlton Rewards accounts may be unavailable during overnight hours between now and the 18th. These overnight outages shouldn’t affect Starwood accounts.
Starting August 18th though you won’t be able to use previous travel package redemptions for a month.
When hotels change brands, it often happens suddenly. Paid reservations are generally honored. Award reservations are sometimes honored. In either case, though, elite members of a loyalty program should not expect new management from a new brand to honor the benefits guests were entitled to in that other program.
Sometimes hotel chains do a good job re-accommodating guests with points bookings that are displaced. Sometimes they don’t do a very good job. However even when they do it can be stressful for the guest. And for employees.
Elite earn at 500 more hotels is potentially very useful for a chain that today has only 700 of its own hotels compared to Marriott’s 6500.
Earlier in the month it was reported that Marriott-Starwood would be losing the St. Regis, Westin and W hotels in Dubai all at once. The same owner of these hotels — Al Habtoor Group — also pulled the St Regis Habtoor Polo Resort and Spa out of the chain.
Dubai was one of Starwood’s most important markets, they had a legacy Emirates partnership similar to their Delta partnership in the US and a UAE co-brand credit card. Marriott’s loss, though, appears to be Hilton’s gain.
Hyatt’s major problems are that their footprint is so much smaller than major players IHG, Hilton, and Marriott (they’re about 10% the size of Marriott), and that they’re building a high-end strategy while their growth has come largely in the limited-service sector.
But they may be about to grow their number of properties by 50%, centered in Europe and Latin America.
Club1 Hotels has a new booking engine and an app and booking through them seems easier and cleaner than before. There are also tons more top hotels than before, too, when I’m searching their site I’m generally finding the inventory I want. There are cruises and car rental deals, too.
Since joining for a year with this offer is free – something they usually charge for – I don’t see a downside to signing up just in case you have a use for their deals in the coming year. And search the site because any good deals are 5% better with my promo code. They appear to take their best rate guarantee seriously, too.
Three months ago Marriott shared details on how they’d be bringing their three loyalty programs together with Marriott Rewards, Ritz-Carlton Rewards, and Starwood Preferred Guest all operating on a single platform and single set of rules starting in August.
The new Marriott program launches August 18. I spoke with David Flueck, Marriott’s Senior Vice President of Global Loyalty, on Tuesday to talk about the transition and get several more questions answers about what to expect.
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 »
