Category Archives for Hotels.
Marriott announced a deal for $920 million dollars with its co-brand credit card partners. In exchange for the cash Marriott has extended its co-brand deals with both partners.
These deals aren’t just good for the travel company, they’re good for consumers. But there’s an interesting reason we’re seeing hotel chains access their loyalty programs for cash before airlines do the same.
Marriott emphasized that they have 3300 hotels active with mobile room keys and more being added. This means not having to check in at the front desk with an employee, or having the employee handle your room key. Instead you check in with your phone, and use your phone as a room key.
That’s great, and Marriott is proud of how widespread this feature is (though not yet at half of their hotels). What they didn’t tell you, it turns out, is that they’ve actually pushed back the roll out of this technology at hotels which don’t currently offer it in order to save money.
A year and a half ago police stormed the Westin Denver airport room of a United Airlines pilot, arresting him for dancing, gyrating and waiving” naked in front of the TSA screening checkpoint below the window of his room.
Police entered with guns drawn. He was naked. He took a phone call, he said, just as he was about to get into the shower…
For hotels to attract guests they’re going to need to be responsive to these customer demands. They need to give guests confidence to stay, and hotels will compete to offer a product that appeals to these sensibilities.
Marriott has now outlined their plans for increased health and safety for both employees and guests. But even more change will be coming to the industry.
While hotel chains have been good about allowing cancellations of non-refundable, non-changeable consumer bookings, this flexibility has not been extended to events in most cases. Most hotels seem to be asking event hosts to reschedule for a future date, not cancel, and are reluctant to return deposits.
Some hotels are asking event organizers to cough up cash for events that aren’t happening.
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!
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 »
