HotelChatter - Tag: Hotel Loyalty Programs

Complaining at the Holiday Inn Might Get You More Priority Club Points

travelingmcmahans — 2008-08-19T12:38:49-05:00

If you're a fervent hotel loyalty program member then you might be familiar with the term Mattress Runner.

These are people who just book hotel rooms to garner a certain amount of points that will either take them to the next loyalty echelon (gold, platinum, etc.) or earn them a free stay.

So the question for Mattress Runners is: What would you put up with for 50,000 points?

We have a first-hand experience of one guest who had much to complain about at a Holiday Inn near the Atlanta airport. Yet it turns out, all that grief made him loaded in Priority Club points. Mattress runners take note.

The full story is after the jump.

London: Would You Pay to See a Concert in Your Hotel?

jennm — 2008-05-01T12:44:49-05:00

Many hotels have long professed to be patrons of the arts, housing their own art collections that no one ever looks at or, on a lesser scale, offering discounted museum tickets.

Guest Hotels is now taking it all a step further by turning its five London properties into stages featuring cabaret and indie artists, as well as providing guests with back-stage passes to London celebrity events.

Central to the idea is the Concierge Club, open to everyone for a fee of $340, which provides members with exclusive access to the events, as well as to exhibitions and shows at the Institute of Contemporary Arts and the Tate.

Starwood Devalues Their SPG Points Yet Again

juliana — 2008-02-20T14:52:33-05:00

<![CDATA[<img src="http://www.hotelchatter.com/files/admin/spg_sign.jpg" class="imgborder"><a href="http://www.elliott.org/blog/starwood-devalues-award-points-in-a-pretty-sneaky-way/">Elliott.org</a> reports that <a href="http://www.hotelchatter.com/story/2007/10/1/16401/9680/hotels/HotelChatter_s_Guide_to_Loyalty_Programs_Starwood_Preferred_Guests">The Starwood Preferred Guest Program</a> (SPG) is making significant changes to its categories of hotels starting March 4, 2008.Basically a lot of action is happening in the lower categories like the 1, 2 and 3. But the bad new is that a lot of these hotels are moving up in category thus meaning you will need a heck of a lot more SPG points to get a free night at your desired hotel.For instance, at the Four Points By Sheraton Hotel in Hagerstown, MD (yeah we never heard of it before either) you once needed 2,000 Starpoints® for a free weekend night and 3,000 Starpoints. Now that it's moving up to a Category

Hotel Loyalty Programs Getting Stingier

Tim L. — 2007-12-27T10:28:59-05:00

<![CDATA[<img align="right" src="http://www.hotelchatter.com/files/admin/hiltonhonorsguide.png" class="imgborder">An article this week in the Wall Street Journal was all about hotels expanding their rewards programs to offer dinner from a star chef, a space flight, or <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119862624701249685-email.html">a night with Travolta and the Hairspray cast</a> at a Broadway premiere. It's the secondary theme that got our interest though: <blockquote>Hyatt, Hilton and Starwood recently changed their programs, requiring more points for higher-end hotels and irking travelers who complained the changes caused a devaluation of their points. Staying at one of Starwood's most-luxurious properties now requires 35,000 points per night for a standard room during peak season, up from from 25,000 points before the change. Last year, Hilton reclassified hundreds of its hotels into higher categories --

Hotel Rewards: Naughty or Nice?

juliana — 2006-05-19T15:55:01-05:00

<![CDATA[<img align="right" src="http://www.hotelchatter.com/files/admin/bottle_gift.jpg">A reader wrote in to say that <a href="http://www.hilton.com">Hilton</a> had downgraded his Hilton Honors status from Gold to Silver as part of their rewards system change. And our friend was not too happy.<blockquote>I just received a surprise the other day when I logged onto hilton.com and discovered I was all of a sudden a Silver Honors member instead of a Gold member. I knew I was well above the number of stays to keep me as a Gold for the rest of the year so I went back to the site and checked the rating criteria. Sure enough, the required stays for the year had gone from 10 to 16 for Gold, and I was somewhere in between.