Category Archives for Hotels.
Hilton’s new promotion: is double points on all stays with checkouts by December 31 plus 2000 bonus points for checkouts on a weekday. In addition Hilton is offering double elite night credit for nights stayed October 11 – December 31, 2022. You need to register for both, award stays count, and the offers tell us something about business travel and loyalty right at this moment.
A Marriott Bonvoy member writes about a recent award redemption experience – a flight delay caused them to miss the first night of their award stay, so they got the free night certificate back and the hotel charged them cash for the missed night. They were fortunate the cash amount was only $153. I’ve seen it as high as $2000.
Since the Lindner properties have focused on a primarily European market, it’s not surprising that many of the properties aren’t air conditioned. I asked Hyatt about this – whether JdV was going to be marketing hotels without air conditioning?
Marriott is no longer referring to the Fairfield Inn brand, instead calling it Fairfield by Marriott. I only saw this in the news that Marriott is expanding Fairfield to Europe and the Mideast, from its existing footprint of more than 1230 hotels.
A company built on Mormon values, that distributed the Book of Mormon, will be putting Muslim prayer rooms in hotels in order to gain access to new markets.
Hyatt is adding more than 30 hotels in 7 European countries, focusing on Germany and Central and Eastern Europe, by partnering with Lindner hotels to bring their properties into the Hyatt brand and loyalty portfolio.
If you have any upcoming stays it could be a good idea to check on whether rebooking makes sense, or to reserve this week rather than waiting until a future week to make that reservation – see whether the rate discounts, award discounts, or double points and elite nights for home share stays make sense.
Marriott CEO Anthony Capuano gave an interview and the whole thing struck me as.. strange?
He incorrectly claims Marriott had the first hotel loyalty program. He talks about resort fees as incredible for customers. And he talks about how much control is necessary over hotel stays, even as they defer more and more to individual owners.
HotelSavers is Air Canada Aeroplan’s new product offering hotel redemptions, leveraging the airline’s buying power and ability to offer lower than public rates.
While the federal government’s proposed rules for airlines say it’s not acceptable to disclose even optional fees like those for seat assignments and checked baggage during the purchase process – they must be available at the first instance a price is shown in a search – the government (through the Federal Trade Commission) says resort fees are fine as long as they are disclosed prior to confirming the reservation.
IHG One Rewards calls their fall promotion ‘pick your points payoff’ for the alliteration but I think of it more as ‘choose your own adventure’. You actually choose which of two promotions to register for, and you can only have one or the other.
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 »
