Here is why this hurts so much for me. I travel a lot on business and my companies use Fairmont as well as the others so I have some choice in what I book. Suite upgrades let me book my corporate rate and then on select trips I have been able to take my family with me for 5 nights in Major cities across Canada over the years. Would not be allowed to pay for suites at the Fairmont due to corporate policy, so now, my choices on those trips become : don’t go, (unlikely), don’t bring the family, or stay at a much lesser “suite” in something like a residence inn or townbridge suites, where the booking of a suite is comparable in price to a Fairmont room, but out of the downtown core, lacking service or things for the family to do while I work. I suspect the family will just stay home.

We’ll use our certs for this coming year and see how it goes from there, but, have been preparing for this inevitable situation over the last year by racking up points to redeem for suites in other programs. There is a loss to Fairmont of 30-40 nights this year due to program uncertainty and that much again next as the benefits I value most evaporate. In the past I ALWAYS booked Fairmont if there was one at my destination. Lately, that hasn’t been the case.

I have 11 nights booked in a Gold suite over the holidays coming. Something we do yearly even without certificates being usable. Next year it will likely change. Certainty trumps hope on getting a suite, and that is why I choose FPC for the past 10 years. Now I can get the same hope with multiple providers with more choice and locations.

i have truly loved FPC and have awesome memories of so many great Fairmont staff and wonderful surprises in so many places. I feel for those caring people who will be affected by this change as many of us will spend less. Perhaps the properties will more than make up the revenue with an influx of LeClub members. I am uncertain that will be the case, at least here in Canada.

The most likely outcome in the long term is I will stay elsewhere on the 70 or so business nights I book each year and Fairmont can compete for my 10-15 vacation nights a year I spend my own money on. Stiff competition awaits.