Originally Posted by
Land-of-Miles
Look at this another way.
What is the purpose of a frequent guest scheme? Is it to reward past loyalty or encourage future stays? The typical view is that it is the latter, if it is to be bestowed as a backslap for past patronage that would be unusual.
Well yes. The RA program is very unusual in this and other respects, however I'd wouldn't phrase it as a backslap for the past. We are treated very well on most every stay and that ought to encourage us to stick with IC as our primary hotel choice. They realize that there aren't IC's everywhere and that's why they allow HI and CP, etc., stays to count for something. But I recall before the HI merger that we did not have that option. And there were a whole lot less IC's in the world back then. So if your travels didn't take you to enough cities with an IC, then tough luck.
You know they don't actively promote RA status. Nowhere near as much as Starwood promotes Platinum status for instance. So you can't say that IC is hanging out some fruit for frequent stayers to reach up and grab. It is a reward for their most frequent guests. The top 1%. For everyone else there is Ambassador, which isn't too bad. That seems to be the philosophy.