20
May
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…
Hilton HHonors released a list of hotels increasing reward category on April 30, 2012. The HHonors list only lists hotel name ordered by hotel brand, and some hotels have only a partial name and some an incorrect name on the list.
Hilton HHonors members will likely find a list of hotels ordered by geographical location more useful.
There are 330 hotels rising in category and 117 hotels dropping in category. Read More…
Hilton HHonors released its list of hotels changing reward category on April 30, 2012. There are 330 hotels going up one category level. There are 117 hotels moving down one category.
HHonors has seven categories of hotels used to designate the hotel reward level for all Hilton brand hotels except Waldorf Astoria Hotels.
Category 6 and 7 hotels will receive 123 new hotels into the ranks of the top tiers. Only three hotels will drop in category with the Hilton Beverly Hills dropping to category 6 from category 7. Hilton Promenade at Branson Landing in Branson, Missouri drops from category 6 to category 5 as does Hilton Mumbai International Airport India.
The most significant issue affecting Marriott Rewards members when the hotel reward category reassignments happen on March 15, 2012 is the set of hotels moving from Category 4 to Category 5 that will no longer be available for reward nights with the free night certificates earned in the past two Marriott MegaBonus promotions.
The free night certificates received for MegaBonus and the enrollment free night certificate for Marriott Visa cardmembers are limited to category 1-4 hotels. Nearly 100 hotels are rising from category 4 to category 5 and will not be available for reward nights using these certificates after March 15.
Marriott Rewards members sitting on reward night certificates may want to closely examine the list of hotels in this post rising from category 4 to category 5 on March 15, 2012 and decide to redeem certificates for hotel stays prior to March 15. You can book a stay using the certificate for dates past March 15 as long as you make the reservation before the hotel rises to category 5.
Marriott Visa Premier cardmembers receive a certificate good for category 5 hotels with renewal membership. Check out this list of category 5 hotels moving to category 6 to see if there may be a current category 5 property to book your reward night before the hotel rises to category 6 on March 15.
The announcement of new higher reward tiers by IHG Priority Club yesterday got me thinking about an article I wrote 12 months ago for InsideFlyer called “Scaling Peaks of High Category Hotel Rewards“. Structural changes to the hotel reward night cost are infrequent among hotel loyalty programs. Typically the adjustment is simply to add another high end hotel reward category in the segmentation of hotels within the loyalty program.
The addition of a new higher reward also tends to shift most properties upward in the system.
Hilton HHonors simply shifted all hotels upward in its restructured rewards table when the Category-7 hotels were added two years ago. The net effect was more than 80% of hotels in the Hilton HHonors program increased reward cost for nights using points. Hilton HHonors still has the best extended stay discounts for hotel rewards with up to 25% fewer points needed for stays of six nights or more compared to the standard reward rate. Hilton HHonors, Marriott Rewards and SPG are the only programs offering extended stay reward discounts on the standard redemption level for reward nights.
Marriott Rewards made its major restructuring in 2009 with significant increases in the cost of extended stays at its hotels when it changed to a simple 5th night free reward chart.
Hyatt Gold Passport added Category-6 to its structure in 2010 and shifted many hotels upward. The category shift depleted a large proportion of bargain category-1 hotels at 5,000 points.
SPG has made few changes to its reward charts in the past few years. I anticipate we can see a change to the low category points cost of 2,000 to 4,000 for category-1 and category-2 hotels, possibly this year. How much longer can SPG category-1 last with fewer than 25 hotels globally in 2011 and fewer each year? Raising the cost in points for these hotels would allow SPG to redistribute category-2 hotels down to category-1 without lowering the current reward cost for these same hotels.
SPG high category hotels are already out of alignment with the other chains in the cost of hotel rewards.
Frequent Guest or Frequent Spender?
My concern with hotel loyalty program reward night cost as a hotel frequent guest and not a big credit card spender is the continual rise in reward cost for hotels without a change in the earning structure for points. During the the 13 years I have been an SPG member the hotel reward rates increased from 12,000 points to 35,000 points for top category hotels in SPG while the earn rate has remained unchanged at 2 points per dollar and 1 bonus point per dollar for elite members.
Basically the frequent guest suffers from inflation in the cost of reward nights in the loyalty program generated to a large degree by the mass production of points earned for non-hotel stay activity like credit card spend, online shopping, and social media promotions. These are good revenue generators for the hotel loyalty program, but not necessarily a positive effect for the loyal frequent guest whose reward stays increase in cost.
IHG Priority Club Rewards tier changes
Priority Club is raising the cost of rewards in 25% of its 4,500 hotels on January 18, 2012. The change will raise the cost of many Crowne Plaza and Hotel Indigo properties by 40% and hundreds of other hotels by 25% or more points for a reward night.
The Priority Club program has a different reward structure than other programs in basing the cost of a hotel reward night by hotel brand. Rather than go to a simple tier structure where a popular Holiday Inn in one location might cost the same as an InterContinental in another location, the program is adding multiple tiers for rewards for each hotel brand.
Scaling High Category Awards
An interesting pattern emerges when base points earned per dollar are correlated to the cost of award nights at various category levels in different hotel programs. The amount of hotel spend needed to earn sufficient points for a free night at the highest award levels is similar across hotel programs–except Starwood Hotels and Club Carlson.
Club Carlson category 6 hotels at 50,000 points require $2,500 in hotel spend to earn base points on spend. Club Carlson members earn 20 points per dollar with no lower earning brands. This change occurred in 2011. Will this earn rate to redemption rate good value last through 2012?
Hilton HHonors category 7 hotels at 50,000 points range from $3,334 in hotel spend for Points & Points earners to $5,000 for Points & Miles earners. Hilton HHonors launched Home2 Suites brand in 2011 and also lowered the earning rate for base points to 5 points per $1. All Hilton brands earned 10 points per $1 until the launch of Home2 Suites. This two-tier earning rate is a pattern seen with lower rate for base points earned in Marriott Rewards and IHG Priority Club for their extended stay brands. That was one of the most unwelcome changes in 2011 with Hilton HHonors.
Marriott Rewards highest category 8 hotel nights are 40,000 points. Earning 40,000 base points requires $4,000 in hotel spend. Most Marriott brands earn 10 points per dollar, except Residence Inn and TownePlace Suites have a lower earning rate of 5 points per $1. The cost for category-8 hotel rewards is as high as $8,000 in spend for Marriott Rewards members living at Residence Inn hotels.
IHG Priority Club will have three tiers of InterContinental Hotels at 30,000 points, 40,000 points and 50,000 points as of January 18, 2012. The top tier will require $5,000 in base spend. The lower earning brands of Staybridge Suites and Candlewood Suites at 5 points/$1 will take as much as $10,000 in spend to earn points for a top-tier reward night. Priority Club along with Hyatt Gold Passport and Club Carlson does not offer any discount for extended stay rewards.
Priority Club Crowne Plaza and Hotel Indigo rewards at 35,000 points will require $3,500 to $7,000 in hotel spend at the base earn rate for members.
Hyatt Gold Passport category 6 award at 22,000 points per night equates to $4,400 in spend at the earn rate of 5 points per $1.
Starwood Preferred Guest members earn 2 points per $1. A category-7 hotel is 30,000 points in low season if it is not a specialty “no standard rooms” hotel requiring double points. That is $15,000 in hotel spend or $10,000 as an elite member and far exceeds the hotel spend to reward cost of other hotel programs. Even a low season category 5 Starwood hotel at 12,000 points takes $4,000 to $6,000 in hotel spend or $5,333 to $8,000 in hotel spend in peak season.
Hotel Loyalty Promotions
The frequent guest relies on hotel loyalty promotions to improve the earning rate for points. 2012 will be an interesting year to watch promotion patterns. The hotel industry gained ground in 2011 as rates climbed and occupancy soared in many locations.
Will free night earning promotions offered in 2011 be seen in 2012? HHonors and SPG currently have resort focused free night offers and SPG’s current promotion is limited to Asia/Pacific.
Will good value promotions see more hotels opt out? This was the case with many Hilton and SPG offers in 2011 where as many as 20% of hotels in the programs did not participate in a loyalty program offer.
Hyatt Gold Passport had many years of Faster Free Nights for a free night at any Hyatt brand hotel globally after two stays, but this promotion was not repeated in 2011.
Marriott runs the same boring promotion over and over, year after year. While two free nights at a low category hotel is a good value promotion, the limitation is the free reward nights are not good for high category hotels.
Club Carlson has had some of the best promotions in the past year and the program is gaining recognition. Can they sustain the momentum?
Priority Club has had some of the best non-stay promotions that generated loads of attention to the program and keeps Priority Club at record numbers of members approaching 60 million globally. These are great if you are into social media games, but where is the love for the frequent guest staying in hotels?
Aside from “Crack the Case” in 2010-11 where I pulled in 100,000 points, the way to get Priority Club points is using social media to find links to promotions that are not generally known outside of FlyerTalk, MilePoint and points blogs. Priority Club is quite generous in giving out points bonuses if you know how to “Crack the Code“.
Priority Club is spreading word through social media that reward nights will increase at 25% of IHG hotels globally on January 18, 2012 when new tiers are added across all IHG brands. This amounts to around 1,125 hotels increasing in reward cost by 5,000 to 10,000 points per night, assuming 4,500 IHG hotels worldwide.
Priority Club reward nights will cost less for 20% or about 900 IHG hotels globally.
Priority Club Brand Tiers for Reward Nights as of January 18, 2012.
Click on image for full size view. This chart is located on PriorityClub.com.
60 Days from January 18 to book or rebook at best reward redemption level
Don Berg, IHG VP for Priority Club stated to me in an interview today that members will have two months to book hotel rewards through customer service at the lower points level for reservations up to 360 days from booking date.
FlyerTalk and blogosphere comments indicate IHG customer service agents aren’t really up on the changes yet as news of the impending tier addition and IHG hotels shift spread rapidly across social media channels today.
Loyalty Traveler Analysis (based on pure statistical guesses and no detailed knowledge of actual changes other than 25% hotels going up and 20% going down.)
Every IHG brand has a new higher tier as seen in the chart.
Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express add a new 20,000 point reward tier. Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express hotels already had a 25,000 point hotel reward for about 1,000 hotels globally and 70 % of the 3,300 Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express hotels are currently 15,000 points (60%) or 10,000 points (10%).
[update Jan 3 2:25pm Pacific - the original post read 90% of these two brands were at 10K or 15K. This data was corrected from 90% to 70% based on the Priority Club Reward tier categories compiled by ChongCao on this website.]
I expect 80% or more of the 2,000 hotels changing reward tier up or down will be in these two brands. Four reward tiers will allow easier shifts for Priority Club hotel rewards for Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express hotels based on revenue and reward demand.
InterContinental, Crowne Plaza and Hotel Indigo will likely see a shift upwards in most high occupancy metropolitan areas. Perhaps 25% or more of hotels will increase by 10,000 points per night and that is about 150 hotels in these three brands.
Staybridge Suites and Candlewood Suites will likely change upward for high revenue locations and affects about 120 hotels of 500 or so if reward nights increase by 25% more points.
Any techie care to produce a list of current Priority Club Reward levels before January 18?
Update Jan 3 2012 - ChongcCao has a UK website updated in August and November 2011 showing Priority Club reward tiers in 2011 for Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express and InterContinental hotels and tier changes from 2010 levels.
Frustrating to me is Priority Club Rewards does not have lists of hotels at the different reward tiers on the Priority Club website. I asked Don Berg, VP IHG Priority Club loyalty program, why Priority Club has no list of reward tiers for its hotels? Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott and Starwood publish the reward cost of all their hotels in easy to search lists. He said Priority Club research indicates the general Priority Club member does not have a need for a master list showing the reward cost of hotels.
Priority Club requires the member to look up a destination like Paris, France or Lubbock, Texas and see hotels and their reward cost.
Priority Club nicely displays Reward Night Rates in hotel searches.
My January 18th question is “Did the hotel reward tier go up or down?”
The need for a master list to me is to make use of the 60-day window for booking rewards at the lower level. There are no master lists of Priority Club reward tiers to know if a hotel went up or down when the new tiers are added January 18. We can tell which hotels increased to 35,000 or 50,000 points with several of the brands. The changes will be easily detected with Crowne Plaza, InterContinental and Hotel Indigo.
What about the midscale traveler’s needs?
Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express hotels is where I think more than 80% of the 2,000 hotels shifting tiers will occur. On January 18 how will you know if that 20,000 point hotel reward was 10,000 or 15,000 or 25,000 points before?
You will only know the January 18 reward rates and not the previous reward rates when you look up Lubbock, Texas or Key West, Florida. How will you even know to call and book the lower rate during the 60-day grace period after the tier changes at those 800+ Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express hotels that go up in reward cost on January 18?
The following data is an addition to the original post based on data from ChongCao’s census of IHG hotels at different Priority Club reward tiers.
2011 reward tier data for Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express hotels prior to January 18, 2012 changes.
InterContinental Hotels (ChongCao hotel tier list for 169 properties)
USA – Holiday Inn (671 hotels) (ChongCao reward tier hotel list.)
USA – Holiday Inn Express (1,731 hotels) ChongCao 25K reward tier hotel list
International – Holiday Inn (549 hotels) (ChongCao reward tier hotel list.)
International - Holiday Inn Express (367 hotels)
Related link FlyerTalk ChongCao – Master List of 10K and 25K Holiday Inn /Holiday Inn Express List
2011/2012 (Nov 9, 2011)
Today, Monday March 7, is the last day to book reward nights at 351 hotels being assigned to a higher hotel reward category on Tuesday, March 8. Most of these hotels will cost 5,000 points per night more for hotels rising one category level.
There are 35 hotels rising from category 4 to category 5 which will make them ineligible for free night certificates earned from Marriott Rewards MegaBonus and Marriott Rewards Visa credit card enrollment free night certificates limited to category 1 to 4 hotels.
Loyalty Traveler Analysis of Marriott Rewards 2011 hotel category assignment changes
First trend – Aruba, Netherland Antilles Caribbean island is the Marriott hot spot.
5-night Marriott stay = 140,000 points today or 160,000 points tomorrow.
Marriott’s Aruba Resort & Stellaris Casino, along with two Marriott timeshare properties, Marriott’s Aruba Surf Club and Aruba Ocean Club, leap to the prestigious category 8 reward level.
Category 8 has been the exclusive domain of world class destinations like New York, London, Paris and Rome.
Now Aruba ties London and New York for most Marriott category 8 hotels at three each. Paris is only two and Rome just one.
The Asians must be getting a team ready for 2012 competition. Australia can’t be far behind.
Marriott Aruba has a 23.74% hotel tax.
For now, dock the yacht in Aruba at 40,000 points per night, or possibly more points if you want to see the ocean from your hotel bedroom when you’re off the boat. Of course, go Dutch and you can live social in Aruba at 20,000 points per night each for two. Unfortunately you need 160,000 points in one account to get the Marriott Rewards 5th night free rate, so going Dutch might not be so practical or economical if you need to buy points to reach 160,000 points.
Actually Marriott Rewards allows free transfer of points for spouses and domestic partners from one account to another to reach the amount needed for a specified award redemption level.
You can buy 50,000 points in a calendar year for $625. That is a fairly high price for buying points. For a location like Aruba the points might be worth the cost if you had 60,000 points and could buy 100,000 for $1,250 and redeem for a 5-night vacation. Aruba is a place where $500 per night is not uncommon.
Renaissance Aruba Beach rises to category 6 on March 8. 120,000 points for 5 nights makes this Aruba location the poverty jetsetter’s retreat.
Hey babe, Virginia Beach, Virginia or Zurich and Vail?
Category 7 hotel rewards share the realm of New York, London, Paris, Boston, Miami, South Lake Tahoe and San Francisco.
People must really like Virginia Beach.
I went to Virginia Beach once in 1973 when I was in 7th grade and lived at Fort Eustis, north of Newport News, Virginia. My memory is a beach of jelly fish. The area might be appealing to me now if I were to return, but I don’t know about a Residence Inn and SpringHill Suites moving from category 6 to category 7 in 2011.
Hotel names like Grand Cayman Marriott Resort and Key West Marriott Beachside Hotel and Zurich Marriott in Switzerland sound like places for legal and illegal financiers to mingle with pirates in the lobbies. Vail Marriott Mountain Resort is a jetsetter vacation getaway. JW Marriott Washington D.C. has fantastic location near White House and IHG’s The Willard and Starwood’s W hotel.
Then, there are the Residence Inn and SpringHill Suites Virginia Beach Oceanfront properties rising to category 7 and 35,000 points per night. Fairfield Inn Virginia Beach rises to Category 6 on March 8.
Hotels rising from Category 5 to Category 6 reward nights are evenly divided between 10 international and 10 domestic hotels. Aruba, Australia and Canada are places where room rates have risen and the dollar has weakened. The domestic hotels look like popular tourist destinations and of course Courtyard JFK Airport has a high traffic location.
Hotels rising from Category 4 to Category 5
Important: Book today if you want to use certificates for these Category 4 hotels rising to Category 5 hotels. These hotels are rising from 20,000 points to 25,000 points per night.
Toronto, Munich and Cologne in Germany, Sao Paulo, Cairo, Moscow are places with rising hotels.
In the U.S. are Disneyland, San Diego, Miami, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Boston, Boston Logan, Raleigh, La Guardia (LGA) airport.
The majority of changes involve current category 1, 2 and 3 hotel assignments.
112 hotels increasing from category 3 to category 4.
About half of the 15 international hotels include full-service Marriott and Renaissance properties in Shanghai, Bogota, Sao Paulo Airport, Stuttgart, Germany, Kuwait City, and Cebu City. Canada has several Courtyard and Residence Inn hotels rising.
97 of the hotels rising from category 3 to category 4 are in the U.S. The interesting aspect of these changes is the rates at U.S. hotels have actually been lowest of all the global regions. The changes affect Courtyard, Residence Inn, Fairfield Inn and SpringHill Suites across the country.
115 hotels are rising from category 2 to category 3. These are nearly all in the U.S. and geographically diverse.
There is a net loss of 42 hotels from the category 1 level at 7,500 points per night. With all but 3 hotels of about 250 in category 1 located in the U.S., the loss of 42 hotels is a significant shift of hotels out of the bottom category for U.S. travelers. The blow is only an additional 2,500 points.
The shift of 227 hotels from categories 2 and 3 to categories 3 and 4 is not balanced in any way by the 55 hotels moving down from categories 4 and 3 to catagories 3 and 2. This is a net shift of 172 hotels, about 7% or 1 in 15 Marriott brand hotels in the U.S. going up 5,000 points per night tomorrow.
The past two years have seen room rates fall across the U.S. and the U.S. has one of the lowest average daily room rates across the globe. Looks like Marriott is picking up some of the rate difference through higher hotel reward cost for U.S. travelers.
See March 2 Loyalty traveler post for a complete list of hotels changing category March 8.
The good side of the hotel category changes
89 hotels decrease in reward cost on March 8.
There are no hotels currently in category 7 or 8 that are decreasing a category level.
Dropping from Category 6 to Category 5 (3 hotels)
Vinoy Renaissance St. Petersburg, Florida Golf just isn’t the same with Tiger Woods a fallen angel, but this golf resort goes for less in 2011.
Ledra Marriott Athens, Greece. You might sense a little anti-American sentiment, but you can get it for a little less per night as this hotel drops from 120,000 points for a 5-night stay to just 100,000 points.
Casa Magna Marriott Puerto Vallarta for a zinging beach experience. A high floor should keep you out of target. I jest of course. VallartaToday.com, the English language local newspaper, says your chance of being a crime victim in the U.S. is 8% compared to 1.3% in Mexico. I avoid those 8% neighborhoods around California.
Dropping from Category 5 to Category 4 (15 hotels)
JW Marriott Beijing or JW Marriott Caracas are a little bit cheaper on March 8. You can tell me all about the joys and authenticity of hostels, home rentals and couch surfing. When I am in Caracas, I’ll take the JW Marriott as a top recommendation. Although the Renaissance La Castellana Caracas is also category 4 and is ranked #1 on TripAdvisor today for Caracas hotels.
Boca Raton and Doral are the cheap vacation reward destinations with four full-service Marriott and Renaissance hotels dropping category. Renaissance Hotels in Tampa and Cleveland drop too. BWI Airport Marriott will cost less for a layover.
Dropping from Category 4 to Category 3 (29 hotels)
Beijing is the cheap place to be with two Marriott and two Renaissance hotels dropping to category 3 at 15,000 points per night. These hotels are 60,000 points for a 5-night stay. Getting that visa into China should go a little easier when your hotel address is an extended stay with Marriott Hotels.
Florida locations, Dallas and San Antonio Texas, Salt Lake City and full service Marriott hotels in Oklahoma City and Greenville, South Carolina are all dropping category. Norfolk Marriott at 60,000 points for 5-nights is a 10-mile drive to the category 7 Residence Inn of Virginia Beach.
Dropping from Category 3 to Category 2 (26 hotels)
Looking at these hotel names is like reading the Case-Shiller Home Price Indices for worst performing housing markets in the U.S. – Phoenix, Las Vegas, Orlando, Jacksonville, Tampa-St. Pete, Ohio and Michigan.
Dropping from Category 2 to Category 1 (16 hotels)
Rural, suburbs, undesirable locations that you do not want to find yourself staying overnight. I actually am not familiar with any of these locations. Enough said.
Check the list, study it twice and see if there are any last minute reward nights you want to book before the hotels increase in category level on Tuesday March 8.
Starwood Preferred Guest annual hotel category adjustments go into effect March 1, 2011. There are 93 hotels moving down in reward night category level and 84 hotels moving up.
You have until February 28 to book stays over the next year at the lower category rate for hotels moving up on March 1.
This post will not include an analysis of changes except to note that nearly all the changes affecting a little over 60 U.S. properties are in the downward direction. Hawaii and Colorado resorts are going up.
Many of the changes internationally appear due to currency exchange rates. Australia has moved to parity with the U.S. dollar over the past year and the result is a category increase in many Australia Starwood Hotels.
The population of Category 1 Starwood Hotels outside of North America is dropping from 20 hotels to 13 for 2011 with 9 properties rising from category 1 to category 2 and 2 hotels dropping to category 1. The list of category 1 hotels in the U.S. drops from 11 to 9 properties. The lowest hotel reward category has dwindled to less than 2% of Starwood Hotels gloablly.
Here are the Starwood Category changes organized by country, state and city.
Starwood Hotels 2011 Hotel Category Changes USA and Canada
Starwood Hotels 2011 Category Changes International Properties
