Category Archives for Hotels.
Marriott announced that Free Night Awards that were originally supposed to expire in 2020 or that will expire before July 31, 2021, will have their expiration date extended to August 1, 2021. In addition Marriott had previously said they wouldn’t expire any points due to account inactivity until February 1, 2021. That’s been extended to August 1, 2021 as well.
There’s been no known cases of Covid-19 transmission on US airlines. Sure US contact tracing isn’t very good. But even internationally and across the whole world there are only a few flights where spread is believed to have occurred despite around a billion people traveling so far this year.
Hotels too seem to be safe. There haven’t been documented cases of spread between rooms either in hotels or office buildings.
This month we lost ‘Eskimo Pies’ in a renaming to Edy’s Pie. So, too, the Pointe Hilton Squaw Peak Resort which is being renamed Hilton Phoenix Resort at the Peak because they’ve decided ‘Squaw Peak’ is racist.
Marriott has a series of promotions running for a week that starts today under the banner of “Week of Wonders”. There’s a sale on paid rates, a bonus offer for making a home booking, and the biggest in my view is all hotels at off peak rates and over 7000 Marriot properties are participating in this.
Booking category 7 hotels for 50,000 points per night, and category 8 hotels for 70,000 points, especially where fall is normally peak season is an amazing deal.
With hotels around the world hurting, and occupancy down and recovery stalled, you’d think a hotel would want revenue anywhere it can get it.
When members redeem points, the hotel chain pays the hotel for the room the guest is using. Yet hotels that used to shun award guests aren’t now welcoming them with open arms. I suspect they’re just not paying attention well to their own businesses.
Publicis Sapient is hiring a Vice President of Project Management to launch a new home rental platform “n partnership with one of [their] market leading global hospitality clients.” This appears to be a hotel chain with “[a] well-established guest loyalty program.”
A month ago there was much fanfare over Hyatt’s taking over the Travaasa Hana hotel on Maui, on the eastern tip of the island – the opposite side from where most of the resorts are located. Initially part of their Destination Hotels brand (where many elite benefits don’t apply), it’s believed that it’ll become an Alila property when its renovations are complete.
One thing immediately stood out about the property, however: absolutely no award rooms. While they’ve been selling stays at the property, there weren’t any award nights available through the end of the schedule. That’s finally changed.
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.
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 »
