Loyalty Traveler blog for current hotel loyalty program promotions and news.
Hotel loyalty programs provide a currency that has cash value equivalent. The frequent guest who uses hotel loyalty programs with good account management skills can realize 100% added value on the cost of hotel rooms.
Travelers who stay in hotels throughout the year and spend $1,000 or more are missing out on real value if you rely solely on Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz, Kayak, and Priceline. The rate may be lower on some, most, or all your hotel stays, but hotel loyalty programs have a major advantage over online travel agencies.
Free nights and complimentary upgrades come much more easily to the frequent guest who learns how to incorporate a hotel chain's frequent guest program into a travel lifestyle.
You may have evidence that your hotel stays save you hundreds of dollars a year when booked through Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz, Kayak, and Priceline.
Loyalty Traveler has evidence that hotel loyalty programs can provide 50% to 100%+ added value on your hotel spending.
Ric Garrido is the Loyalty Traveler, a former public school teacher with a decade of hotel travel experience using hotel loyalty programs to see the world from a suite perspective.
Loyalty Traveler analyzes hotel loyalty programs and provides quantitative value to:
hotel promotions,
hotel points earned through stays and other activities,
hotel points redemption opportunities,
specific benefits of loyalty program elite status.
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Hradcany Suite complimentary upgrade at Residence Nosticova, Prague, CZ
Loyalty Traveler creates consumer-focused hotel travel analysis:
• Evaluation of hotel loyalty promotions for travelers.
• Loyalty Traveler blog offers specialized information designed to help travelers find lower hotel rates than commonly found on Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz, Kayak, and other third party online travel agencies or even on the hotel’s own primary reservations page with step-by-step navigation to a variety of special rate offers and nuances of hotel loyalty programs.
• advice on attaining elite membership in a hotel loyalty program and the benefits of hotel loyalty elite status.
Hotel loyalty elite membership is the primary strategy for getting more hotel room value for what you pay.
Loyalty Program and Travel Planning
Finding high value in loyalty program earning and redemption opportunities is a Loyalty Traveler specialty service. Getting a $200 value for $100 in spending is fairly easy once you learn to incorporate hotel loyalty program strategies in your travel.
Inquiries: ricgarrido@frequentguest.net
Loyalty has privileges and the Frequent Guest is often the guest paying less.
Ric Garrido, Loyalty Traveler
Monterey, California
"Travel is the frivolous part of serious lives,
and the serious part of frivolous ones."
Anne Sophie Switchine, 1782-1857
Three features of hotel loyalty programs allow travelers get higher value from hotel spending.
1. Earn hotel loyalty points and receive credit for each paid stay
Hotel loyalty program membership allows the member to earn points on paid stays at a hotel brand member of the corporate hotel loyalty program. Hilton HHonors, Marriott Rewards, Hyatt Gold Passport, and Starwood Preferred Guest are examples of corporate hotel loyalty programs. Membership is free for most programs and can be immediately activated.
2. Perpetual Promotions
Hotel loyalty programs perpetually feature promotions for earning bonus points or free nights. These promotions are actually a type of rebate for free and discounted future hotel travel. In some cases, a hotel promotion may provide a rebate with a significantly higher value in future hotel room redemptions than the cost to earn the promotion hotel points bonus.
Hotel Example: Starwood Hotels promotion between May and July 2009 offered a free weekend night for every two stays in Starwood Hotel brands. I stayed 14 nights in Starwood Hotels in the San Francisco Bay area and Denver, Colorado during the month of May. The average cost of rooms was just about $100 per night and I earned 7 free hotel nights with the promotion. The first redemption at the St. Regis San Francisco was a $500 per night room for free.
Pay for one vacation and get your next one free is a great travel strategy.
3. Elite Membership
Hotel loyalty programs bestow elite membership to frequent guests who meet the qualifying stays, nights, or spending requirements of the specific hotel loyalty program. Elite status provides added privileges and benefits. At times these benefits can be an added value of several hundred dollars for your hotel stay.
Reaching a high elite status requires between 15 and 75 nights a year at member hotels of the loyalty program. Each hotel program has published elite membership qualification standards.
Marriott Rewards ran a promotion in May and June 2009 allowing a member to receive 2 nights elite qualifying credit for every night stayed in a Marriott brand hotel. The requirement for Platinum level top elite status was reduced from 75 nights to potentially just 38 nights during the promotion period.
Hyatt Gold Passport has a promotion from May to September 15, 2009 giving members instant Platinum elite status, normally 5 stays or 15 nights in a calendar year. High elite Diamond status can be reached with just 15 nights in a 120 day period with this promotion. Gold Passport Diamond elite normally requires 25 stays or 50 nights.
In general, the major hotel loyalty programs, like airline frequent flyer programs, tend to recognize elite members by the frequency of stays rather than the amount of money spent. This allows a budget traveler to leverage elite status membership through frequent low-cost hotel nights and redeem hotel points and receive elite membership benefits and privileges at high-cost upscale hotels and resorts.
Elite membership allows additional opportunities to earn hotel points, complimentary upgrades, and additional hotel amenities. The benefits of high level elite status in a hotel loyalty program has the potential to add several thousand dollars of added value to the frequent traveler’s hotel stays.
Travel example:
A high elite frequent guest books a $99 room rate at a resort during the slow period of travel. Chances are fairly good the high-level elite member receives a complimentary room upgrade to a suite that may have had a rate of $299 for the same night. This is a $200 added value for the frequent guest provided as a complimentary benefit in recognition of elite status. The guest benefits from a better room than booked and the hotel benefits from a loyal customer who did not stay at the competitor's hotel resort on their $99 off-season rate.
The purpose of Loyalty Traveler is to assist the traveler through the hotel loyalty world described in the three points above and get jumpstarted on a better hotel travel lifestyle.
The internet means a traveler can easily research and self-book travel and bypass a travel agent and booking fees.
FrequentGuest.net offers a consumer guide overview of hotel loyalty programs.
Loyalty Traveler blog hosted by BoardingArea.com provides current information on hotel loyalty program promotions, benefits, and good hotel values.