Category Archives for Hotels.
Hyatt has announced another round of customer-friendly moves for program members who aren’t traveling now, and that improves program value for redemptions next year when demand should still be soft. They’re extending expiration of elite upgrades and various free night awards and further pausing expiration of points. And they’ve announced the date when they’ll roll out the peak/off-peak redemption pricing devaluation.
Hyatt announced both a new and very lucrative promotion, along with an extension of a great points-redemption offer. You can get up to 25% back when redeeming points, and you’ll be able to earn up to quadruple points on Hyatt stays while also earning elite status credit both in the fourth quarter of 2020 and having those stays also count in 2021 as well. That’s some generous, lucrative thinking on the part of Hyatt.
Barclays has introduced a refreshed suite of Wyndham credit cards and they’ve done as good a job as possible considering the limitation that they’re working with Wyndham, a motley collection of brands and a loyalty program that last year doubled the redemption cost of its best hotels.
Marriott CEO Arne Sorenson endorsed ‘hygiene theater’ explicitly speaking at Skift‘s Global Forum. He knows that some Covid efforts aren’t effective but sees them as important signaling tools anyway.
Sorenson has previously been an enthusiastic supporter of a strong central Chinese government and its response to Covid-19. At Skift he again talks about their success in handling the virus and simply says that the country’s authoritarianism “is what it is.”
IHG Rewards Club is offering double points for stays October 1 through December 15 (registration required) with a kicker that’s 10,000 bonus points after first stay during the promotion period for co-brand credit card cardmembers.
You even get a free drink at the bar, and you do not need to have a social following or call yourself an ‘influencer’.
IHG hotels, the chain that includes Holiday Inn, Kimpton, Intercontinental, and related brands, is bringing its flexible cancellation policy to an end. All of the major hotel chains have sought to encourage new bookings by making them very low risk for consumers. IHG says, though, ‘no more’ after September 30.
There’s a huge desire to get hotel pricing and restrictions ‘back to normal’ but I don’t think the world is back to normal yet, and if other chains don’t follow IHG will be at a competitive disadvantage.
World of Hyatt extended current elite status so that members who qualified last year are able to use the benefits that they earned through 2021. However there’s a hole in Hyatt’s approach: confirmed suite upgrades and free nights for those members – set to expire February 2021 – were not extended. Hyatt says expect to hear something in weeks.
Last month Hilton came under fire for housing children in the process of being deported by the United States. The chain told hotels they shouldn’t accept these bookings. Now we learn that children were being held in even more Hilton, Marriott, and Choice hotels than we thought.
At least 660 children have been held in hotels enroute to deportation. Most were unaccompanied by parents. According to the government “it cannot allow children to stay in the U.S. due to the coronavirus pandemic.”
A significant number of Marriott Ambassador agents have been notified that their positions are being eliminated, generally effective October 1. This isn’t the first round of layoffs for Ambassador agents. The hotel chain shed customer service agents who work with top guests back in March, effectively eliminating the ‘dedicated agent assignment’ for customers who stay 100 nights and spend $20,000 each year with Marriott.
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 »
