This strikes me as a bonus offer meant to get your client or employer to spend a little more on a room to give you a little more.
There are apparently now 200 Four Points hotel properties, and Starwood is offering this bonus.
Here are the terms and conditions.
You have to book rate plan FP200 and stay by December 31. Not all properties are participating.
Check rates under this rate plan and also without it to see how much extra you’re paying for breakfast and bonus points. This will only make occasional sense. I’m generally seeing higher rates, but in some cases only a few dollars higher. You’ll need to value the breakfast at some amount for this to work out.
In general 200 or 400 bonus points is not at all enough to sway a booking decision, although picking up extra bonus points is better than not picking them up when the cost to you is the same.
One imagines that paying a higher rate and picking up bonus points is a strategy for individuals that are getting reimbursed for their travel. A bad incentive, but one that many folks do employ because – for people that book their own travel – it’s tough for accounting partners to detect after the fact.
(HT: Frequent Flyer Bonuses)
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Of course it is a bad incentive, but it pales in comparison to the incentive in the revenue-based ff programs. No doubt this incentive was not lost on the folks at delta and united.