Other Hotel Programs - A-club changes

Got this email today. While I never had any problems with hotel credits I wonder what other changes are coming...

Dear Mr. starflyergold,
With your A|Club card, you have the opportunity to earn points at over 2,000 hotels* in the Accor Group around the world, as well as with our partners. Our top priority is to reward you for your loyalty.

Soon your A|Club program is going to get even better to bring you even greater satisfaction.

In order to continually meet the expectations of our loyal clients such as yourself, we are pleased to announce the upcoming automation of the system we use to record points for our establishments. In fact, your A|Club points will soon be credited automatically any time you provide your A|Club card number when you make a reservation via our www.accorhotels.com Web site, our reservation center or through a travel agency.

As from today, we kindly invite you to use our Web site www.a-club.com and check your account at any time to track the activity on your card and make sure your transactions are recorded properly. That way you can notify us quickly in case one of your stays is not credited to your points account as you expected.

I got this email too and I recall predicting this would happen back when everyone was complaining about A-Club. When Starwood and the other programs started, they had all sorts of problems too. It takes a while for a new program to mature and improve. A-Club is catching up now.

I assume they will also look at the perks now that the comped Platinum period for ex Sofitel card customers is coming to an end.

I still hope for automatic and confirmed upgrades, free internet etc. to be offered to Platinum members.

I got upgraded at the Sofitel LHR two days ago without asking. And I just looked at the new site and my points and bonus points have already credited. Well done! ^

I don't know if I missed it or not, but it seems that points don't expire anymore as long as you keep staying at A-Club hotels, right? My account now says...

Last A|Club transaction: 5 Aug 2009
Current A|Club account balance: 18,008
Extend your A|Club points expiration date by earning points before:
4 Aug 2010

I stayed at pullman in Toulouse as a A-Club Favorite Guest and my room was upgraded without me asking and contrary to what it says on the Fav Guest page (upgrades only for Sofitel)

And yes the points no longer expire as long as you continue to stay.

I don't know if I missed it or not, but it seems that points don't expire anymore as long as you keep staying at A-Club hotels, right? My account now says...


Been thay way from the start. Just need to stay once in a 12 month period to keep the account ticking over.

Been thay way from the start. Just need to stay once in a 12 month period to keep the account ticking over.

No, my old Privilege account used to have points expiration dates, no matter how often I stayed. In any case it's fine now.

I don't know if I missed it or not, but it seems that points don't expire anymore as long as you keep staying at A-Club hotels, right? My account now says...



After each hotel stay credited points are valid for 12 months from that date, this also includes the credit of bonus points should these be credited after after a stay let's say at the end of that promotion period.

This has been the case with A-club from the start, the old Sofitel system was indeed different.

it was really time to make this upgrade to their system. I'm A-club platinum (ex-sofitel gold) and in my experience about 2/3 of my stays are not credited automatically, despite card # given at reservation and showed at check-in & at check-out. Basically, outside EU & North America, my stays are almost never credited. And when you try to get retro-credit via the web site, most of the time it works well but sometimes they send you a totally out-of-subject response to decline your demand. I had recently to "fight" with one of their agent by phone who was refusing to credit me a 5-night stay at Sofitel Louxor because the invoice "was not precise enough". OK guy, is it my fault if your hotels are not making precise-enough invoices for you ? Is it the role of your customers to solve your software or computers problems at Accor ? :mad: Finally the Agent put me on hold and contacted directly the hotel and the hotel confirmed my stay.:)

Another thing I don't like and I hope will improve is the inconsistencies between hotels for the benefits of top-tier cards. Sometimes, I have the impression that the staff does not even know about their fidelity programs and benefits associated. Upgrades ? very rare in my experience (30+ stays for the last 12 months, mostly in Sofitel : 1 upgrade at Sofitel Amsterdam). Complimentary drink ? sometimes yes, sometimes no, sometimes you need to claim the voucher because they forget to give it to you ? And I really don't like to have to claim for something that is supposed to be an "automatic benefit", etc etc
Does any of you have similar experiences ?

Goldorak, while all my stays get automatically upgraded, drink coupon, etc., all my Sofitel, M-Gallery, Pullman stays have been in Europe.

I recall when Starwood first began, it was only stays in the US that automatically got the benefits, followed by Canada, then Europe, and then after quite a long time the rest of the world caught up. It took Starwood a lot of money and effort to do all the training.

So I'm not too surprised you would have trouble in places like Luxor. In places like that, I still, to this day, have trouble getting the Starwood Platinum 500 point amenity automatically credited. The Le Meridiens in Casablanca and Ahmedabad in particular have to be reminded.

The bottom line is that with any chain, when you are outside of Europe or America, you have to insist on your benefits and make sure your stay gets credited.