Category Archives for Hotels.
When Hyatt hired Mark Vondrasek – formerly of Starwood – as Senior Vice President for loyalty and business platforms it was announced he would circumvent the CMO and report directly to the CEO. At the time I noted how unique that was.
Though Hyatt tried to dissuade me of the significance that their head of loyalty wouldn’t report to the Chief Marketing Officer the handwriting seemed to be there.
Marriott had to take down their website and mobile app after Shanghai authorities were notified the hotel company listed Tibet and Taiwan as separate countries on a survey.
Then after a Marriott employee working the Marriott Rewards twitter account ‘liked’ a tweet by Friends of Tibet the company was letting everyone know that employee was being fired rather than the usual corporate response of not commenting on personnel matters.
A week ago Hyatt was pricing several hotels below their normal published cash and points award prices. Most of those deals are no longer available.
However several hotels are again charging less than they are ‘supposed to’ for cash and points.
When Austin tried to impose its own regulations on Uber, they learned that they were too small a market to matter. California and New York may be able to influence a company’s behavior, but Austin cannot. As regulation is increasingly global, the most important markets set the rules.
China is the next big thing. That was true 15 years ago, and it will be true 15 years from now. But for companies making a big bet in the country, Beijing is able to exercise global sway.
IHG Rewards Club has issued an update to its terms and conditions. And there’s only one change, repeated a few times in a few different ways. They want to make very sure you know that Taiwan is part of ‘Greater China’.
China’s civil aviation authority demanded a public apology from Delta and changes to its website for listing Tibet and Taiwan as countries.
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.
IHG folded Kimpton and its Karma Rewards program into IHG Rewards Club. In the process they sanitized the benefits offered to elites, although they’re maintaining Kimpton’s top ‘Inner Circle’ level as an invitation-only program similar to Intercontinental properties and Royal Ambassador, with no public criteria for how members will earn it.
The upside to all of this is supposed to be for IHG Rewards Club members generally, more nice and interesting properties to use there points at. And that is now live on the IHG website.
In early November Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia moved to consolidate power, arresting senior princes, the wealthy, and former government leaders under the banner of a new anti-corruption campaign.
The high profile prisoners were held inside the Ritz-Carlton Riyadh. All guests on property were unilaterally kicked out, reservations dishonored. But guests will apparently be welcomed back for Valentine’s Day.
Hotel Best Rate Guarantees are mostly vaporware. Hotel chains want you to book directly through them because it costs them less to make a reservation themselves than it does to pay a commission to Expedia or other online travel sites (or travel agents). So they want you to believe you’ll get the best rate booking direct.
Best rate gurantees are largely a marketing claim rather than a promise, and they generally contain so much fine print and so many hoops as to be meaningless (on purpose).
Starwood Preferred Guest eliminated elite status matches in March 2011 and replaced them with ‘status challenges’.
Status challenges let you earn status more quickly — fewer nights in a compressed period of time — though in Starwood’s case they don’t advance you the status while you’re working on the challenge.
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 »
