Hotel Loyalty schemes

Amp34

Amp34

Amp34

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I'm going to be spending over a month on and off in hotels in the next few months and was thinking I may be able to get some benefits out of it. Anyone signed up to one (things like the Starwood preferred, HHonours etc)? Any good/worth it?

I looked in to a couple last night but none seem vey good at all, for a free night in a Starwood hotel (or any of their subsiduaries) I calculated I'd need to spend about $6000. Whereas, for example, booking everything through Hotels.com and taking advantage of their scheme, would give me about 4 free nights (based on about 40 nights) and would give me much more choice where I could stay.
 
In my experience hotel loyalety schemes are better bang for your buck. I'm signed up for SPG (Sheraton et al) and I think I get a night free for about 5 night stays (it differes depending on where you have your paid bookings).
 
are you paying for it or an employer?

if you're paying for it then perhaps it is best to just get a cheaper room in the first place via a comparison site and collect rewards from them

if an employer is paying then get yourself an amex, put everything through that and sign up for the hotel points scheme

2 weeks in oslo got me enough points for 3 nights in budapest with club carlson, put everything through AMEX and you can earn a bunch of rewards points to put towards stuff like flights etc.. too
 
If you put the time in (or find someone else who has) it's fairly straightforward to calculate a loyalty schemes payback rate. If like you say this comes out lower than a booking site's "discounted" price then it's not worth it, but this will depend on the hotel, the chain, the website, the time of year, the day of the week etc.

One other thing to note is that whilst x points may get you a night, that night may have to be taken at a certain time of the year, or on a certain day. This is not the case across the board, but it's worth looking out for.
 
Starwood is one of the best ones i've used. Regardless of free nights stay, as soon as you start racking up points, you can very easily get upgrades as they want to retain your business.
 
Definitely sign up, I am a member with IHG (Platinium), HHonours (Gold), Marriott (Gold). Each one of these give you free nights and various other things like free room upgrades, executive lounges, free breakfast, free wifi etc
 
Main one I use if the Marriott Rewards scheme after spending a few nights a week for 18 months or so in them, so made sure to take advantage of this by joining their scheme and also their credit card to gain extra points. Think I'm at about 150 nights in total with Marriott, some of the guys I was working with at that time were on over 1000 and were being offered the lifetime status!

The benefits have been good for me, have had two trips to the US with the hotels all paid for with points, plus being Platinum get all the freebies which have been great and the occasional random free night here and there. The lounge access on the last trip was excellent having free food and drink pretty much on tap the whole week, free breakfasts, free internet, room upgrades etc.

Now I'm not away as regularly I'm not racking up the points and stays as much, but I'll likely rebuy platinum again next year using my points which will likely wipe the balance out but that point total is only worth one night in a decent grade hotel anyway.

Marriott also have their 'challenges' where they give you Gold/Platinum and you get three months to hit a certain number of nights or stays, if you hit it you keep the status if not you drop back down.

Was HHonours gold until recently but that lapsed last month, they had a scheme with the company I work for whereby 4 stays gets you Gold status for the rest of the year and all of the following year.

Depends on what you want out of the schemes I guess, to get free nights you've got to put quite a lot in to get them, but if the extras that you can get out of the schemes are worth it to you then they can be good.

Can't hurt signing up for whichever hotel you stay ins own scheme, even if you book through somewhere like Hotels.com when you check in you can just give them your membership number to add onto the stay in most cases.
 
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I find the best way is not to use a hotel loyalty scheme but to use hotels.com

when you book you get a welcome rewards night credit

10 nights booked equals a free night up to the average of the credits built up

If the price is higher at hotels.com you book with them and then get them to do a price match guarantee, also if the price subsequently drops and any site they will match it again

If you want even more then get a Virgin Atlantic flying club account and link for their "shops away" section to Hotels.com and you will get 6 airmiles for every £ you spend (sometime there are promotions at 8/10/12 miles)

I also use one my Amex cards and get either 1.5% cash back or even more Virgin airmiles
 
Echo what Rotty said, hotels.com is better.

For me, I'm part of HHonors and IHG, but that's because I stay there with work. Hhonors gets upgraded to gold straight away, which is worth it in itself in some hotels.
 
I'm fast coming to the same conclusion Rotty, Even the best loyalty schemes seem to need 15 nights to get a free night in the equivalent hotel as opposed to 10 with Hotels ( I already have free nights with them). Also gives the best choice as I can choose any hotel, I forgot how boring chain hotels were until I looked at the options! :) I can also use my AMEX and quidco.

Not sure why SPG is considered the best, I heard that before and that's where I started but you need almost twice the number of nights to get a free one than the others, other benefits seem to be about the same as the others.
 
I lived 11 months in a marriot Residence Inn collecting points
After 1 year I made it to something like Gold member which seemingly gave zero advantages, I had collected enough points to buy a bottom end ipod.

From that i determined they are all utterly useless.



By far the best deal I know of is simply to book through Hotels.com and get 1 night free every 10.
 
Well I worked for the Marriott brand for two years in US and the programme gave decent perks over there but frankly after a brief stint in a Marriott in the UK I found that the benefits are nowhere as good over here.
 
I am a member of all the main loyalty schemes but if you are paying for your own accomodation there is a major catch - it's often very difficult to make sure you always stay at the same brand without either overpaying (ie, sometimes you might need to pay more for a Holiday Inn Express than a Hilton in order to keep racking up IHG points) or staying in sub-par properties (ie, in some towns the Hilton property is poor and the IHG equivalent is very good for the same price).

The answer therefore is exactly what Rotty says - and this is what I do as well. I stay about 40 nights a year in hotels for leisure and I can't find anything that beats Hotels.com. The combination of Welcome Rewards credits and Quidco cashback mean I effectively get a 20% discount off what is almost always a rate as cheap as the lowest rate for the property in question.

And you can stay anywhere whilst still benefiting.

I'm HHonors Silver at the moment, this means I get a free bottle of water. WHOA. Hotel loyalty schemes suck unless you stay very very frequently at somebody elses expense. Or you troll it with credit card signup bonus's ;)
 
Agree on the above, if you're staying away a lot at works expense the hotel schemes can be a nice benefit!

I've not found Marriott rewards to be much worse over here than the U.S, the main thing really is the club/exec lounges tend to be better in the US.

Gold will give you higher points rewards, used to get free water and wine in the room, free internet and depending on where you go and how the receptionist is feeling free upgrades and lounge access.

I don't stay in them enough anymore to really go for free nights, hotels.com would be better for that, but I'm not paying the majority of the time I'm away anyway ;)
 
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Club Carlson is good, I generally stay with their chain of hotels when i'm in London.

At my membership level it equates to enough points for £16 a week on a pre paid card, not bad for £800 a year for basically free.
 
[TW]Fox;27976692 said:
I'm HHonors Silver at the moment, this means I get a free bottle of water. WHOA. Hotel loyalty schemes suck unless you stay very very frequently at somebody elses expense. Or you troll it with credit card signup bonus's ;)
Click to expand...

I don't see the point either unless your company is paying. I'd rather go somewhere independent that has free WiFi. :p
 
Quidco do 8-12% cashback on hotels.com, worth booking using quidco referral, then watch the tracking to make sure it does. All adda up, and is in addition to the one night in ten.
 
[TW]Fox;27976692 said:
I am a member of all the main loyalty schemes but if you are paying for your own accomodation there is a major catch - it's often very difficult to make sure you always stay at the same brand without either overpaying (ie, sometimes you might need to pay more for a Holiday Inn Express than a Hilton in order to keep racking up IHG points) or staying in sub-par properties (ie, in some towns the Hilton property is poor and the IHG equivalent is very good for the same price).

The answer therefore is exactly what Rotty says - and this is what I do as well. I stay about 40 nights a year in hotels for leisure and I can't find anything that beats Hotels.com. The combination of Welcome Rewards credits and Quidco cashback mean I effectively get a 20% discount off what is almost always a rate as cheap as the lowest rate for the property in question.

And you can stay anywhere whilst still benefiting.

I'm HHonors Silver at the moment, this means I get a free bottle of water. WHOA. Hotel loyalty schemes suck unless you stay very very frequently at somebody elses expense. Or you troll it with credit card signup bonus's ;)
Click to expand...

Most of the stays will be in North America, but even in a big city there is surprising little choice, especially if I want to keep in the budget my organisation will pay. As much as I look forward to the free bottle of water (and probably upgraded rooms with 40+ nights) it's just not worth it, although things are complicated slightly with the special rates we would get by booking direct with the hotel. Hotels.com it is.:p
 
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