Category Archives for Hotels.
If you care about your elite benefits part of selecting a hotel now must include finding out what benefits are actually being honored at a property. And if you have to work so hard to get your benefits, the benefits probably aren’t worth it to begin with, and you shouldn’t be choosing a hotel based on loyalty to a chain.
Job listings can offer insight into a company’s strategy. For instance decade ago a leaked job listing for someone to drive Delta’s revenue-based changes to SkyMiles gave us a couple of years’ advance notice to the dumpster fire that earn and burn would become in that program. An HR job listing at American Airlines tipped the world to the carrier’s CEO succession planning.
Marriott posted a new job on Monday that could offer insight into the company’s growth strategy.
Two weeks ago Radisson hotels shared that Radisson Rewards would split into two geographically-distinct programs on June 17, 2021. This is being required by the U.S. government to keep data on Americans separated within the Chinese-owned chain.
When this happens there will also be changes to award redemption, and there will be status matching and points transfer between the programs.
Just a couple of weeks ago Marriott rolled out a credit card in South Korea. It was interesting for its hotel breakfast benefit and easier earning of Bonvoy Platinum status through card spend than what’s offered to U.S. customers.
Now Marriott has announced two cobrand credit cards for members in Mexico. They’re issued by Banorte which also offers the United Airlines co-brand South of the Border.
This is a rather unusual offer that combines some of pandemic-era innovation with a traditional stay x, get y free promotion.
The American Airlines-Hyatt partnership has a great new targeted offer, and we’ll now very shortly just how many Hyatt members who have linked their American AAdvantage accounts that is: 1000 American Airlines miles per night up to 30,000 bonus miles – stackable with at least three other ways to earn.
The fact that a Westin hotel can go against the chain, and against their co-brand relationships with Chase and American Express, shows everything that’s become wrong with Marriott over the past several years.
Earlier in the week IHG Rewards seemed to devalue their points raising the cost of many properties without notice. Indeed, 100,000 points was no longer the most you’d pay for an Intercontinental and it became possible to spend as much as 79,000 points for a single Holiday Inn room night.
Right now prices, in some cases, appear back to where they were before the devaluation.
IHG will be bringing back a generous offer for joining or renewing its Ambassador program, which is the chain’s paid status program for Intercontinental hotels..
IHG Rewards devalued their points without notice and in the middle of the pandemic, when hotel properties have been suffering. Those hotels, for the most part, should want award guests filling rooms more than ever before. And with room rates in most places down, points should go farther than before not be worth far less.
So why would IHG do this?
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 »
