Originally Posted by dmodemd

All loyalty programs are being tied more directly to margin they are willing to give away to high revenue customers. They are trying to set a direct % give back which means tied to $ spend. The earn part has worked that way for hotels for awhile and the airlines have pretty much caught up but now you are starting to see that adjusted on the redemption side, where variable redemption amounts, more tied to the pricing are occurring. Accors is doing this and that's why it appears cheap compared to the U.S. brands. Unfortunately, you can expect to see this happen more soon with the U.S. brands. Hilton is doing this, but covertly. They have a sliding scale redemption, initially pegged to the redemption chart, but soon you will see that drift and devalue the points and customers won't notice so easily.