HotelChatter

Tags: Pet-Friendly Hotels / Red Lion Hotels / Hotel Loyalty Programs / → All Tags

Hotel Loyalty Programs Are Not Just For People

We just adore our doggies and kitties, so how cool is that the Red Lion chain has started up a pet loyalty program?

To start with, Red Lion is now offering no extra charges for your pet to stay in your room with you at any of its hotels — that's the suitably-named "Pets Stay Free" program. But your dog or cat can also earn 500 points per stay if his or her owner (that would be you) enrolls in the Red Lion R&R Club, and once they save up some points, your four-legged family member can redeem the points for "desirable gift redemption options just for pets."

On top of that, any pet which stays before the end of September gets to enter a drawing to win a year's worth of pet food for free. Red Lion hotels think that the recession will keep people traveling closer to home by car — just the kind of vacation you want to bring your pet on — so everyone will be a-checkin' into their place. Well, actually their press release says the dogs and cats will be begging their owners to book into a Red Lion, but we're not convinced that our pets actually understand the concept of hotel reservations. Unless said reservations somehow involve bacon.

Tags: Holiday Inns / Hotel Loyalty Programs / Mattress Runners / Priority Club / → All Tags

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

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.

more ›

Tags: Guest Hotels / Hotel Services / Hotel Concerts / Hotel Loyalty Programs / → All Tags

Would You Pay to See a Concert in Your Hotel?

Where: London, United Kingdom

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.

more ›

Tags: Starwood Hotels / Starwood Preferred Guest / Hotel Loyalty Programs / Loyalty Program News / → All Tags

Starwood Devalues Their SPG Points Yet Again

Elliott.org reports that The Starwood Preferred Guest Program (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 2 hotel, you will need 3,000 Starpoints® for a free weekend night and 4,000 Starpoints for a free weeknight.

Once you hit a Category 3 hotel, those point requirements jump up to 7,000 a night.

So essentially, Starwood is trying to cut back on the amount of free nights its reward program members can get which of course, sucks.

But hotels are doing more of this recategorization and more frequently. We reported on changes that Starwood, along with Hilton and Hyatt made back in December. And way back in May of 2006, Gary Leff over at FlyerTalk issued a pretty good theory on why Starwood does what it does.

Again, all of this still sucks for us hotel guests but as Gary said back then:

a little candor and honesty might make the pill go down a bit more easily.

[Photo: Goodgrief]

Tags: Hotel News / Hotel Loyalty Programs / Hilton Hotels / → All Tags

Hotel Loyalty Programs Getting Stingier

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 night with Travolta and the Hairspray cast at a Broadway premiere. It's the secondary theme that got our interest though:

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 -- meaning more points are required for stays there. For example, the Las Vegas Hilton, which used to be a Category 3 hotel, was reclassified to a Category 5. That means the cost of a night at that hotel increased to 35,000 points from 25,000 points.

In other words, your points in these programs got wholloped with a 40 percent decline in value, just like that. Maybe being a pro-wrestling ring-side manager for a night will take your mind off your loss of value in the Hilton HHonors program. Hey, it's only 520,000 points.

For a full rundown on hotel chain programs, see The HotelChatter Loyalty Program Guide.

Tags: Tips / Starwood Hotels / Hotel Loyalty Programs / Loyalty Program Guide / → All Tags

Hotel Rewards: Naughty or Nice?

A reader wrote in to say that Hilton had downgraded his Hilton Honors status from Gold to Silver as part of their rewards system change. And our friend was not too happy.

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.

Nice of them to tell me. Oh, and I logged in again today and got a popup telling me I'd "achieved" Silver level, so I guess they decided to tell me after all.

Hilton is not having a good day. First the wireless goof in Vienna and now this.

But they are not alone. Starwood is also considering changing up its awards program (i.e. how many Preferred Guests points will it take to get a free night.)

Our pals at the View from the Wing are experts on the rewards programs at different hotels and they chalk it up mostly to rising hotel prices but it's worth a look if you ever wanted to see how these hotel rewards programs operate.

Related Stories:
· A Theory on Why Starwood is Considering Devaluing its Awards [View from the Wing]