The best value in hotel loyalty rewards is the Priority Club PointBreaks hotels at 5,000 points per night. The list this time around is for stays through July 31, 2012 and offers more properties outside the USA.

Oceania has not participated in some time and PointBreaks are offered at the InterContinental Fiji and Crowne Plaza Surfers Paradise, Australia.

There are a dozen InterContinental Hotels on this list with four in Africa including InterContinental Mauritius. Read More…

VALEO Spa was kind of an intimidating experience for a spa virgin like me. I don’t mind naked time in my home or in a natural location like a river or lake pool when I don’t have a swimsuit, but I am not accustomed to having strangers touch me on my sides or legs or feet in a low lit room. I generally have to know you better.

Then I found I really enjoyed the experience of being sweated, washed and massaged at VALEO Spa in the JW Marriott Chicago. Read More…

Hilton HHonors introduced Points & Money rewards in 2011 requiring only 50% points of a standard reward night with a cash copay.  The initial announcement was discussed in my May 9, 2011 post on Hilton HHonors Points & Money Rewards when there were only a few hotels offering the reward.

Hilton HHonors officially launched Points & Money Rewards in late 2011 and the FAQ briefly included a table showing the cash co-pay for each hotel category level. The Hilton Points & Money copay table was removed from the Hilton website within a few hours of my October 3, 2011 post on Hilton HHonors Points & Money Rewards.

The table was replaced by this wording: “The number of points required to redeem Points & Money Rewards varies by room, hotel, and booking date.” Read More…

Accor Hotels, the French-based hotel group that has the largest proportion of branded hotel rooms in Europe, has sold the US based Motel 6 chain for US$1.9B to Blackstone, a U.S. private equity group that also owns Hilton and La Quinta hotel chains.

After all the high finance maneuvers Accor will be left with about 330M EUR to invest in emerging Asia-Pacific and Latin America markets where most new hotel development globally is happening.

Motel 6 and Studio 6, an extended stay brand, is the largest budget hotel chain in the U.S. and Canada with 1,102 hotels and 107,000 rooms.

These ownership changes might have a limited impact on the operations of the Motel 6 chain when the deal is completed around October 2012.

Blackstone is like the WalMart of the hotel industry.

Will Blackstone attempt a loyalty program marketing strategy to re-image Motel 6 for the American traveler?

In the back of my Loyalty Traveler mind I am wondering if the new owners will try and implement a hotel loyalty program for the Motel 6 brand now that this ubiquitous Cinderella of the American budget traveler is out of the step-sister role it played with Accor.

The budget chains of Accor Hotels are not participants in Le Club Accor loyalty program. Motel 6 comprises almost 25% of Accor’s global properties and there is no points earning system in place for Motel 6 stays. Only a couple of promotional opportunities allowing summer month redemption of Accor cash certificates (2,000 Accor points = US$60) for Motel 6 stays were offered in the past few years.

Blackstone may just bring Motel 6 to the hotel ball. And even if Motel 6 does not dress up too pretty, obviously Blackstone sees something of value behind those doors.

A Motel 6 loyalty program is just my speculation, but that would be interesting news for the budget traveler. I’ll be watching Motel 6 in 2013 for changes.

News Sources: Bloomberg Financial – Accor to Sell Motel 6 to Blackstone for $1.9 Billion (May 22, 2012)

Financial Times – Accor sells US budget chain to Blackstone(May 22, 2012)

Hotel News Now – Blackstone buys Motel 6, Studio 6 for $1.9b (May 22, 2012)

Park Inn is the upper midscale hotel brand of the Carlson Rezidor Hotels Group. The Park Inn 1 + 1 promotion earns 44,000 points with a single stay at a Park Inn from May 22 to July 22, 2012 for the first 20,000 Club Carlson members to register.

Park Inn 1 + 1 Registration.

Most Park Inn properties are located in Europe which is why this promotion launched at 3:00pm Pacific time, 6:00pm Eastern on May 21. The time was midnight May 22 in France and Germany and other European cities where Park Inn is a more abundant hotel chain.

There are currently only ten Park Inn hotels in the U.S.

• Park Inn by Radisson Fresno, California
• Park Inn by Radisson Harrisburg West, Pennsylvania
• Park Inn by Radisson Dallas – Love Field
• Park Inn by Radisson Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan
• Park Inn by Radisson Tulsa Airport, Oklahoma
• Park Inn by Radisson Toledo, OH
• Park Inn by Radisson Hotel & Water Park, Albuquerque, New Mexico
• Park Inn by Radisson Sharon, Pennsylvania
• Park Inn by Radisson DFW Airport South, Irving, Texas
• Park Inn by Radisson Houston North Hotel & Conference Center, Houston, Texas.

Register now if you really think you will get to a Park Inn during this promotion. This is a great offer for the Europeans, so maybe don’t take up one of the 20,000 slots for 44,000 points if you have little hope of getting to a Park Inn by July 22.

Looks like I’ll be taking the wife to the Sierra Nevada mountains via Fresno in a few weeks. Time to see some big trees.

Walking into the room I noticed right away three bottles of Stella Artois in the ice bucket next to the tv. Someone actually read that questionnaire where I listed all six pets’ names. The pets didn’t get any gifts from the hotel, but I appreciated the beer. Read More…

SPG has a Facebook “You Like Us” promotion allowing any SPG member worldwide to register and earn 100 free Starpoints. One entry is allowed per member and the deadline is 11:59pm Eastern Wednesday May 23, 2012.

The second component to the “You Like Us, We Like You” offer is a chance for ten winners to receive 100,000 Starpoints each in a drawing around May 25. The sweepstakes is limited to SPG members in certain countries. Read More…

Club Carlson announced last week that a major hotel reward category reassignment will occur May 31, 2012. The full list of 264 hotels changing reward category and organized by geographic location with state and country has been published.

137 hotels going up in reward category. Read More…

Club Carlson will announce in the next couple of hours that existing reservations made prior to the May 15 launch of the Radisson Big Night Giveaway, Country Inn and Park Inn promotions will count for the promotion bonuses.

A few minutes ago I received a call from Molly Biwer, Vice President of Corporate Communications and Public Relations at Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group. The Club Carlson team have decided to change the promotion terms in light of the inaccurate information going out on Facebook and through my blog last week that existing reservations booked prior to May 15 would count for the current Club Carlson promotions.

The good news is that this change in the promotion terms applies to any existing reservations made prior to May 15. So even if you booked in January 2012 for a stay in the May 15-July 15 promotion period for Radisson and Country Inn or May 22-July 22 promotion period for Park Inn, you can register and earn bonus points for your hotel stay. Read More…

Priority Club Points & Cash Rewards have increased to $70 for 10,000 points from the previous $60 rate. This is a relatively minor 17% increase on the reward cost.

This post looks beyond the Points & Cash Reward nights to examine how Priority Club Reward Nights have increased by as much as 63% in the past six months using $7 per 1,000 points as the fair exchange rate for points.  Read More…

Radisson Big Night Giveaway II repeats a similar PR fiasco as Radisson Big Night Giveaway last November. Hotel loyalty programs and their PR reps want to create social media buzz about their offers prior to revealing the promotion’s full “official” details. Without full disclosure and transparency the buzz often stings.

Update May 19, 12 noon California time: Club Carlson has decided to change the terms of the Radisson, Country Inn and Park Inn promotions to allow reservations booked prior to May 15 for stays within the respective promotion periods to count for the bonus points. There were communications errors made last week regarding this term of the promotion and Club Carlson has rectified the error by changing the promotion terms to count existing reservations. This is a fine resolution to the issue. Thanks Club Carlson.   Read More…