To TopGuest or Not To TopGuest? That Is The Hotel Loyalty Question

November 23, 2010 at 9:15 AM | by JetSetCD | Comments (2)

How awesome would it be to get loyalty program points just for visiting a hotel—like dining at its restaurant, grabbing a beer at the bar or just meeting in its lobby—instead of only for the time you actually sleep there?

Put very simply, that's the concept behind the social media loyalty program TopGuest, which tracks your Foursquare and Facebook Places check-ins and awards you points when you stop by hotels under their program. It's an excellent, novel idea, but is it worth paying attention to?

TopGuest launched exclusively with Standard Hotels over the summer, and they quickly picked up further partnerships with the Soho Grand/Tribeca Grand Hotels, Viceroy Hotels and many others, even Holiday Inn. Check out the current full list in the image above (with a bonus of Virgin America and Avis thrown in). Now, we feel like we have a pretty well-rounded social life, and yet we haven't yet earned any rewards. What's up with that?

The answer is simple: we haven't been paying attention to our TopGuest account, despite signing up way at the beginning. The constant news of new partners and their point structures and what rewards (like room discounts and extras) belonged to whom was confusing rather than energizing.

If we got 25 percent off our next stay at a Standard, that'd be cool, but we weren't going to add TopGuest to our list of daily worries just to do so. Perhaps we'll go crazy with check-ins right before we do need to book a stay, but for now TopGuest doesn't seem thrilling as it did in the beginning.

On the other hand, TopGuest would be perfect for travelers who either haven't joined any loyalty programs yet or just loathe them in general. TopGuest doesn't send you credit card applications in the mail nor do they have membership tiers. Plus, it's free.

For these reasons, we'll continue to monitor it. Just, you know, some standardization and a clear list of partners, their perks, and how to earn them would go a long way.

Comments (2)

Return to » To TopGuest or Not To TopGuest? That Is The Hotel Loyalty Question

I mean, I know getting discounts is not supposed to be easy but the TopGuest thing is very confusing and too much work to keep track of.

Not to mention, I was turned off by it after I joined up bc I checked into Soho Grand once and got an auto-tweet from TopGuest saying something like, "If you join TopGuest you could earn points for this check-in!" But um...I did join. So I kinda gave up on it then.

Hey Juliana,

Thanks for the piece and your comment. We know that to date, Topguest has been more confusing and less engaging than it can and should be. We have just released an iPhone and Android App that I think addresses/fixes a lot of the valid issues you raise:
--The App lets you easily see on a map all the hotel, airport, club, and restaurant venues near you where you can get Topguest rewards
--The App automatically tracks your rewards for you, so you can check in to see what you've got at any time, and credits the points to your existing loyalty programs such as Hilton HHonors where applicable.
-- After you check in at a Top Spot [Topguest partner venue like The Standard] with Facebook Places or Foursquare, the app sends a push notification to your phone so you know exactly what your reward is, right there in the moment.

We're also working to make the website better / more clearly communicate how Topguest works.

Also, sorry about that errant tweet! We've only been around a few months and are working to make the product better every day.

Appreciate your feedback.
Geoff Lewis
Co-Founder, Topguest

HotelChatter

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