Tag Archives for breakfast.
Full service Marriott hotels in the U.S. were supposed to have their restaurants open July 1 which means where elite member benefits include restaurant breakfast that’s now supposed to be honored. Some hotels, though, are working angles to avoid offering it.
A month ago Hilton announced that for the second half of 2021, a food and beverage credit would replace breakfast as an elite benefit at U.S. properties. They’ve now shared all of the details about how this will work.
Some hotels offer rates that include breakfast. You need to figure out how likely to buy breakfast you are – and how much you’ll save. Sometimes the ‘breakfast included’ price is really just the room rate plus the cost of breakfast. And if you skip breakfast even one day, for instance you leave too early in the morning on the day you check out, you come out a loser on the deal.
But some hotels during the pandemic have been pulling a breakfast rate scam on guests.
At Marriott’s Hotel Distil, an Autograph Collection property located in Louisville, Platinum elite members and above get a voucher for a ‘continental breakfast’ or $15 off anything on the breakfast menu. Only they don’t offer a “continental breakfast” on the menu. And nothing on the menu was $15 with coffee, fruit or juice, tip and tax.
Hilton actually is actually introducing an on property food and beverage credit for elites, to replace their breakfast benefit, for early July, 2021 through the end of the year.
This applies at full-service, lifestyle, and Hilton Garden Inn properties in the U.S. only.
Marriott has continued to promote its elite benefit guarantees despite suspending them during the pandemic. Fortunately the cash guarantee compensation is back for when hotels fail to deliver specific promised benefits.
One passenger shared the meal they were served in first class on an American Eagle breakfast flight from New York LaGuardia to Atlanta. It looks like a broken up granola pieces sandwich and that’s what the passenger thought that it was, describing it as “the driest sandwich known to mankind” although they “thought it was chorizo too at first.”
A simple way to think about better breakfast is to think brunch. That opens up a whole new world of possibility beyond reheated scrambled eggs or omelettes, granola or oatmeal.
If breakfast matters to you remember that IHG doesn’t promise it; Hilton offers just a continental breakfast but doesn’t exclude brands; Marriott’s breakfast benefit is improved but understanding it is like something out of a Fellini film; while Hyatt’s offerings are both more robust and more clear.
Mark Brugger, the President and Chief Executive Officer of Diamondrock Hospitality, spoke about how Marriott’s new loyalty program is affecting his hotels during the company’s earnings call.
When asked by analysts to provide color on the Bonvoy transition, he noted lower costs and some positives and negatives depending on the property but where he zeroed in on a problem it’s providing breakfast at resorts to elites.
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 »
