Originally Posted by
azepine00
I assume your th
en is a th
an - meaning is quite different
But yes a lot of programs prefer empty rooms/seats to creating a perception of devalued product.
Most foreign (especially asian) carriers fly with empty seats in premium cabins, luxury hotels (think Four Seasons, Pen, MO etc) don't even offer a point based program and rarely give any discounts.
Discounting the inventory at any point is a sure way to guarantee that very few will buy your product at MSRP in the future. A premium brand (and PH comes close enough there) must not discount to generate volume or it's "premium" days are numbered.
In all those examples the hotel or airline is not pretending to have an award in existence. Four seasons may not get rid of empty rooms with awards but they don't pretend that such awards exist. I wouldn't have any issue if Hyatt stated at the beginning that awards are not valid at PH properties.
Is there any airline or hotel program that has an award for a seat/room and will deny availability and choose to let the seat go empty. AFAIK many will deny availability until the very last minute in an attempt to sell for revenue, but who denies award availability at the last minute and chooses to let the seat/room go empty.