Category Archives for Hotels.
Facing an unprecedented downturn, hotels are struggling to stay afloat. Some are turning to unconventional means to fill rooms, like providing luxury quarantine services or serving the homeless at risk for infection.
One furnished apartment chain based in Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo is taking a different route: they’re marketing themselves as an escape for spouses at wits end with their partners during the lockdown and the perfect antidote to ‘corona-divorce’.
A month ago I wrote that frequent flyer programs would save the airlines because they offer rich sources of value and cash. However while United and Delta are reportedly in talks to sell large chunks of miles at a discount to their credit card partner banks, it’s actually Hilton that’s first out of the gate with this.
Hilton shared with the SEC that they’ve pre-sold $1 billion worth of points to American Express. That probably somewhere around half a trillion Honors points.
Hotel bank partners are funding rooms for hospital workers to sleep in otherwise-empty hotels. Another source of revenue for hoteliers right now is housing the homeless who need a place to quarantine during the coronavirus crisis.
Here’s the scale of the project, which sorts of hotels are participating, and how much they can make – at least in California.
It shouldn’t be surprising that even as Marriott CEO Arne Sorenson announced that he would stop taking his salary through the end of the year, in light of the hotel giant furloughing tens of thousands of workers and the majority of corporate staff amidst the cratering of their business during the coronavirus crisis, he’s actually being given a raise. It must be all of those resort fees they pocketed, which Sorenson said are good for us.
Wyndham Rewards is extending all current elite member status through December 31, 2021. Many of us noted that Marriott was last to extend status, but that’s not true. Don’t forget Wyndham!
Hilton has published the DoubleTree hotels cookie recipe. Normally more than 30 million of these cookies are baked annually. They’ve even been baked on the space station. But since you’re grounded Hilton is giving out the recipe.
A reader who has lifetime Marriott Gold lost his Platinum status in 2020. He asked Marriott for Platinum status, and the simply gave it to him. Now current Platinums are having that status extended for all of 2021.
New hotel occupancy and room rate data shows that things got even worse for hotels last week than they were the week before when hotels hit what was then their lowest occupancy rate – ever.
It seemed like things couldn’t get any worse, and then last week happened.
Marriott is extending current elite status through February 2022. And while they had already paused expiration of points through August they have extended that out to February 2021.
A New York City private school though hasn’t been so lucky and is now locked in a battle with Miami Beach’s Eden Roc hotel over a $2.3 million deposit for an April trip. Even though the hotel is closed, they won’t refund the deposit and are demanding an additional $1.2 million.
In my experience so far with group bookings hotels are being much more hard-nosed than with individual reservations. They have money and they do not want to give any back.
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 »
