Fairmont President’s Club Premier and Platinum members who book an “Everyone’s an Original” or “Winter Sale” rate by 12 noon EST, Thursday, January 28 for a stay between January 25 and April 15, 2010 will receive a complimentary suite upgrade certificate valid for a subsequent stay before February 28, 2011. Promotion link with terms and conditions for complimentary suite certificate offer.

Fairmont San Francisco Sutro Suite

Fairmont President’s Club Premier membership requires 5 stays or 10 nights in a calendar year. Platinum membership takes 10 stays or 30 nights in a calendar year.

Fairmont San Francisco Sutro Suite in Tower

Fairmont San Jose has rates as low as $99.

Fairmont San Francisco has rates as low as $149.

Last month I toured several Fairmont San Francisco suites. Wow! What a city view from the Tower suites. And a telescope in the room makes the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, and Coit Tower seem so much closer.

View of Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco Fairmont Sutro Suite

Participating Fairmont Hotels in North American Cities

Participating Fairmont Hotels in North American Resorts

Participating Fairmont Hotels in International locations

Update: January 27, 2010 – I interpreted this Kimpton InTouch charity offer incorrectly in my original Loyalty Traveler post. Generally I don’t even bother calling the hotel company to discuss promotion details due to the high probability of getting bad information. This was actually an instance where I talked to a Kimpton Hotels representative before writing the original post and I basically got it all wrong anyway.

The Kimpton Hotels offer for InTouch members who make a $50+ donation to Doctors Without Borders is one stay and night credit towards the free night InTouch members earn after 7 stays or 20 nights at Kimpton Hotels.

Kimpton Hotels  InTouch loyalty program will give the member a hotel stay and night credit  if  your donation to Doctors Without Borders  is $50 or more.

“For those members who donate $50 or more, a bonus credit will be applied to your InTouch account. This bonus credit will be applied to your next free night in 2010. Please forward your email confirmation to haitirelief@kimptonhotels.com.“

So what does this mean?

Kimpton InTouch is not a points-based hotel loyalty program. The InTouch program offers members a free night after 7 stays or 20 nights. Free night qualifying stay and night credit are cumulative year to year. If you joined Kimpton InTouch in 2009 and had 3 hotel stays with 5 nights, then you would only need 4 more hotel stays or 15 nights to earn a free night.

The $50 donation to Doctors Without Borders will count towards your free night credit by adding one stay and one night credit to your account. If your account shows 3 stays and 5 nights, then a $50 donation will put your account at 4 stays and 6 nights.

I apologize to Kimpton Hotels and my readers for incorrectly interpreting the Kimpton Haiti Relief offer. 

As I understand this offer, say you donate $100 to Doctors Without Borders, then when you redeem a free night credit in 2010 you will receive a $100 credit to use at the hotel for services like restaurant, spa, room service, and such.

If you already have a free night in your Kimpton account, then this offer is a great deal. You will need to complete 7 stays or 20 nights to earn a free night if you are new to Kimpton InTouch.

Kimpton Haiti Relief offer link.

Kimpton InTouch Guest Loyalty Program

Hotel Monaco, San Francisco

California has been battered by El Niño surf this past week. Storms turn me on. I am a stormy weather addict. When nature unleashes its full fury of wind, rain, thunder, ice, waves, and snow, there I am, often walking outside in the brunt of unordinary forces, saying “Bring it on! Is that all you’ve got?”

Saturday morning January 23, 2010 was Day 7 and the last of a series of El Niño storms that rolled each day off the mighty Pacific Ocean into California. Sunday, January 17, Kelley and I went to Carmel Beach. The beach was closed due to high surf. The wind was blowing cold rain horizontally and the sand erosion was already apparent along the 22 acres of Carmel beach. Large “Beach Closed” signs were screwed into the wooden stairway entrances. Barriers were erected in other locations to warn people off the beach; what little beach there was.

Big storms with huge waves blow into Carmel Bay and Monterey Bay every year. Some years bring monster storms. January 2010 was one of the biggies.

But it was two years of winter storms in 1981-82 and 1982-83 which are remembered as having historical impact on the Monterey Peninsula.

I worked on Cannery Row in 1981 at an aquaculture lab raising Atlantic lobsters. The building is still there immediately to the right side of the Monterey Bay Aquarium which opened in 1984. There were major storm waves in the winter of 1981-82 that ripped off most of the outside balcony for the aquaculture lab building. The balcony was where I performed one of my lobster feeding tasks of grinding up fish heads for lobster food. We purchased discarded fish heads from the real fisherman’s wharf of Monterey as opposed to the restaurant and tourist shop Monterey Fisherman’s Wharf where tourists are more likely to visit while staying in town. Then, I individually fed hundreds of lobsters with a weighed portion of fish food, from darting days-old babies to years-old crusty shelled, and no doubt, incredibly meaty lobsters.

Swell waves hitting Monterey Bay Aquarium January 20, 2010

But, despite the big storm waves of 81-82, the winter of 1982-83 is considered the modern day benchmark for major storm activity on the Monterey Peninsula.  The 82-83 storms severely eroded 20 to 40 feet of the bluffs above Carmel beach (photo link). The current walking path beside Scenic Drive and many of the erosion barrier walls and rock revetments to protect the dunes and bluffs above the beach were built after the 1982-1983 storms.

Carmel Beach walls and rock revetment (February 2009)

The storms of this past week created amazing surf. I spent hours driving around the Monterey Peninsula over several days taking photographs and just standing on the bluffs and at times dangerously close to the water in awe of the Pacific waves crashing into shore. At night I lay in bed and waves rolled through my mind as I drifted to sleep.

Waves crashing at road level Carmel Point, Tuesday, Jan 19, 2010

Here is a pictorial story of what transpired over this week in my Picasa photo albums for Carmel (122 photos)and Pacific Grove (145 photos) illustrating  the awesome power of the January 2010 El Niño storms.

Carmel Beach under the Pacific Ocean Tuesday, Jan 19, 2010

It seems bloggers all over are calculating the value of hotel points and airline miles with regard to Haiti donations – P.Ling in Uptake Blog, Gary Leff in View from the Wing, and Nicholas Kralev in the Washington Times.  

I am not going to debate the issue of cash or points for Haiti except to offer one hotel loyalty member consideration for the points v. cash debate. Saving points for a hotel stay and donating cash, with the exception of HHonors or Choice who give award stay elite qualification credit, disregards the traveler who struggles to reach sufficient hotel stays for elite status during the calendar year.  

For example, 4,000 Starpoints gives $100 to Red Cross ($50 from member donation and $50 from Starwood matching donation). $100 donated to Red Cross and using the 4,000 points for a hotel stay earns fewer or no points, no Starwood promotion credit, and no elite credit. The tax deduction for a cash donation might be a relevant consideration for some members.

$100 spent for a hotel stay gives the member elite credit for a paid stay and the opportunity to earn a substantial portion of those hotel points back through the paid stay.

Determining the Value of Hotel Points

I want to discuss the value of hotel points. There are so many variables to consider and many assumptions to make when trying to place a dollar value on hotel points. My interest is analyzing the value of hotel rooms a member can get for hotel points.

P. Ling in the Uptake.com travel industry blog cited several hotel points valuation analyses in this statement “If you think it’s too simplistic to peg each Hilton HHonors point at $0.0025 just because a donation of 10,000 Hilton HHonors points results in a $25 cash donation, I agree. So read this and this. The study for Starwood is here and the one for Marriott is here.”

The analyses cited by P.Ling for Hilton, Starwood, and Marriott reference articles by a website PlasticIQ that published hotel loyalty point value articles in September 2009. PlasticIQ employed more mathematical variables than I do in my analyses, but I do not think the PlasticIQ analysis adequately reflects real travel patterns for the vast majority of travelers and makes the calculations unncessarily complex.

Plastic IQ assigned the following hotel points value when redeemed for hotel stays:

Starwood Preferred Guest = $21.50/1,000 points

Marriott Rewards = $8.30/1,000 points

Hilton HHonors = $4.30/1,000 points

Hearts of the Gods blog gave a value for HHonors = $3.77/1,000 points

PlasticIQ created the hotel loyalty program analyses to assist credit card holders with choosing a card. Here are areas I find faulty in the PlasticIQ assumptions for hotel stay redemption used as a basis for determining the value of hotel points.

Plastic IQ assumptions for SPG

a.       20% of hotel stays will be 5 nights

b.      Most hotel stays will be 3 nights

c.       Hotel stays will be spread out among different category levels (Category 1 = 0% [due to few hotels in this category]; 15% hotel stays at Category 2; 25% at category 3; 25% at category 4, 25% at category 5; 5% at category 6, and 5% at category 7 hotels.)

These are major assumptions that will probably not correlate to the hotel points redemption pattern for 99%+ of travelers in my opinion.

The PlasticIQ analysis when applied to an individual SPG member requires a minimum 20 stays on points to complete this traveler profile. Since 20% of stays are five nights and others are average of 3 nights, the PlasticIQ scenario is based on a Starwood Preferred Guest member with over 700,000 points for free hotel night redemptions. That is a highly exclusive group of hotel loyalty program members.

The average Starwood Preferred Guest credit card member probably earns well shy of 50,000 Starpoints per year. Perhaps the SPG member earns another 50,000 points from hotel stays if the member is Platinum level elite with 30+ hotel stays per year and fulfills multiple promotion offers. 

Loyalty Traveler typically looks at one hotel stay redemption at a time. I write my blog for the traveler who is trying to place value on their points for that next vacation.

In the PlasticIQ HHonors analysis the value of hotel loyalty points is reduced 25% by the Priceline factor. The fact that a Priceline room might be available for less in the city I am staying is no relevance to me as a loyalty traveler. I am focused on hotel loyalty elite credit, promotion bonuses, and complimentary upgrades at hotels. Priceline tosses out all those considerations.

When in Amsterdam, I know the points value if I redeem 48,000 Starpoints for 5 nights at the Starwood’s Luxury Collection Hotel Pulitzer. I simply take the paid cost for five nights and divide that cost by 48,000 points to come up with a value for Starpoints.

I have bid my way to a cheaper stay at the Golden Tulip Amsterdam Art hotel in the past. Priceline can get me a room for $100 per night. But the Golden Tulip is not a hotel in the same league or location as the Pulitzer Hotel. So is there any reason to even factor in Priceline in a hotel points valuation? A traveler who devalues their points by comparing Priceline rates to hotel loyalty program redemption rates should probably not even bother with hotel loyalty programs.

In all fairness, I certainly turn to Priceline when the cost for my hotel loyalty is too high to pay for a hotel room and the points value is too low to justify spending my points. Given the choice between spending $100 per night through Priceline or 12,000 Starpoints per night depends on my travel purpose (business, transit, or leisure) and the necessity of being in a specific location. Priceline is an entirely separate transaction from the value I place on my hotel points. I don’t reduce the value of my points based on the option that I can get a different hotel in the same city for less money.

PlasticIQ uses an allocation of HHonors stays between VIP awards, Pointstretcher stays, Priceline deductions, cash value deductions, and estimated hotel rates. This is far too many variables with unnecessary complexity in reaching a points value. I am not saying the final result is inaccurate, but the hotel loyalty program member can’t replicate the PlasticIQ hotel points value analysis at home.

Loyalty Traveler has shown a simple way to calculate hotel points value for your next vacation and a qualitative chart to give you an idea of what you can realistically be looking for when trying to get the most value for hotel stays from your hotel points balance. Depending on where you travel, the chart numbers may need adjustment, but the overall process is a simple way to determine the value of your points.

My Loyalty Traveler analyses of hotel points valuation is subjective and the math is simple. Here are the valuations I have placed on hotel loyalty points in articles from the past few months.

Hilton $6-9/1,000 points
Hyatt $15-$20/1,000 points
IHG Priority Club $7-$10/1,000 points
Marriott Rewards $7-10/1,000 points
Starwood Preferred Guest $35-$50/1,000 points

Related Loyalty Traveler posts with qualitative tables for points redemption value:

Excellent value with SPG Cash & Points awards

Value of a Point for Starwood Free Nights

Hilton HHonors Redemption Guide 2010

Last October I created HHonors qualitative charts for hotel points value based on HHonors 7 category system now in place. In my analysis I gave a redemption value of $7.00 per 1,000 points as excellent. Based on recent analyses for San Francisco and New York I may have to lower this range. I will wait until I complete a couple of international city comparisons to see if Hilton HHonors members can realistically find redemption values of $9/1,000 points these days.

Loyalty program members have the choice when and where to use points. Anyone settling for redemption values under $5.00 per 1,000 HHonors points is not being selective about when and where to use points for free nights.

In my hotel points valuations for Loyalty Traveler I try to focus on what is potentially the high end of points redemption value. There is no requirement to spend your points for poor value hotel stays. My goal with Loyalty Traveler is to show what kind of value can be achieved with hotel points. The objective for the traveler collecting hotel points should be to earn points by spending low and redeem points for high value. When it comes to donating points to Haiti I tossed out consideration of this objective.

New York City and San Francisco are two cities where I did comparative redemption value across hotel chains. I picked a stay date and compared the actual hotel rates for different chains to the cost for a free night using points and came up with the following values available. The range shows the low value for one particular hotel stay redemption up to the high value for another specific hotel redemption choice.

Value of 1,000 points redeemed for a hotel

NYC:

Hyatt Gold Passport $19.21 to 20.83

Starwood Preferred Guest $14.40 to $34.92

Marriott Rewards $5.97 to $8.63

Hilton HHonors $4.30-$8.78

IHG Priority Club $7.00 to $17.00

San Francisco:

Marriott $3.17 to $13.90

Hilton HHonors $1.86 to $6.30

Just because a hotel has a high redemption value does not necessarily make it an excellent overall value. The hotel could be way overpriced for a paid stay. But when it comes down to any specific hotel where you want to stay, the simple choice becomes pay cash or pay with points.

The range of hotel points redemption values shown here indicates a need to be selective when redeeming points. Points have no value until they are redeemed for something tangible. Choosing an acceptable value to receive when spending your hotel points is a personal choice.