Category Archives for Hotels.
On July 1, 2021 Hilton replaced breakfast as an elite benefit at U.S. hotels with a daily food and beverage credit. This was temporary for 2021.
The concept is amazing (use the credit for a meal other than breakfast, use the credit for room service) but the amount was too low and didn’t cover the least expensive items in major cities. At some hotels it wouldn’t even cover a cup of coffee with tax if you tip (which is expected).
I wrote a little over a week ago that Hyatt would announce a new promotion of 2022 bonus points every 2 nights, Jan 15 – April 20. And they’re doing exactly that. One piece I didn’t share was an additional bonus for Hyatt co-brand credit card customers.
GHA Discovery is probably the biggest hotel loyalty program you may never have heard of. They cover 37 brands which is more than Marriott and they’ll soon hit 20 million members.
GHA – the Global Hotel Alliance – covers numerous smaller chains that skew towards luxury. The Discovery program is relaunching to become much more rewarding. Against the trend in the industry, the new program actually costs hotel owners more in order to give customers more. Elite status is becoming easier to earn, and benefits will become more consistent. And word is they’re even an easy status match.
A reader reached out to me about the Park Hyatt St. Kitts. The hotel appeared to be selling standard suites for the week between Christmas and New Year’s. As a Globalist (top tier elite) he wanted to book a room and confirm a suite.
However he reported that the hotel responded to Hyatt, when they tried to confirm the suite, that the suites weren’t actually available and that the inventory was a glitch.
There are two elements to loyalty marketing: recognition and reward. The former is the elite program, how you treat your best customers. The latter is rebate for their spend.
We can make some overall claims about best that will not apply to every member, every time, with their own subjective preferences. We can do this by looking at the overall earn-and-burn program, and by comparing the major elite benefits each program offers.
When news came out that Marriott had settled with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania over resort fees, I was skeptical that much of anything would change. Press releases were non-specific about what they’d have to do, even suggesting current practices could continue in large part without change. So I tracked down and read the settlement agreement itself. Here’s what it says.
With Marriott bending over backwards to appease the Chinese Communist Party, is it really any surprise that they’ve added a hotel to their Tribute Portfolio brand called “The Socialist” in Copenhagen?
With just 31 rooms and rates that frequently exceed $350 per night the property is hardly egalitarian. And the property touts four different classes of service (from rooms to suites) and provides “privileged access to the surrounding city.”
A reader shared a recent Ambassador interaction that underscores just what the experience has become. They were asking for help with a stay next weekend and followed up after not hearing back about their request for four days. Some snippets from the response they received.
This G.M. simply has the wrong mental model, it’s the customer’s fault and the customer needs to adjust their expectations – pay more, get less – and customers shouldn’t go along with that.
Marriott wants you to think that they’re in the homesharing business, and that Homes & Villas By Marriott is an Airbnb competitor. Despite the tag line, “Private Homes With The Assurances Of Marriott,” that’s not at all what it is.
Did you know that Wyndham points can be redeemed for many properties listed on the Marriott site, and this offers a better deal than Bonvoy much of the time?
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 »
