Originally Posted by
DenverBrian
The "I won't stay in a soulless chain" meme has always smacked of rampant elitism and #firstworldproblem to me. I guarantee you the housekeeper in the chain hotel needs to put food on the table just as much as the one in the B&B or the boutique hotel. @:-)
I think it's quite the opposite. Chain hotels are often more expensive than comparable independent locations, and it smacks of elitism to say "I won't stay anywhere other than X". Brands have standards, and demanding a brand name hotel is elitist, just like demanding brand name clothes or handbags or other products.
Originally Posted by
dulciusexasperis
At the risk of taking my own thread off-topic, I have to comment on 'free nights'. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Getting one night 'free' after paying for 10 or whatever, whether from a hotel chain or from a third party booking parasite, is not free. Businesses of whatever kind, do not offer Loyalty Rewards for the benefit of customers, they are for the benefit of the business. Just as a casino isn't there for the customer to win money, they're there for the house to make money. The only difference is that with Loyalty Programs, you pay in advance fora future stay at a hotel or flight on a plane or a bag of groceries.
If I sell you a bag of potatoes for $5.50 and then 10 bags down the line I give you a 'free' bag for your 'loyalty points', all that happened is you bought 11 bags at $5.00 each. None of them were free.
The "free" products you get from loyalty programs are subsidized not only by your own purchases, but those of other customers who don't use the loyalty program. If you buy bags of potatoes for $5.50 and then get one free, the cost of the free one is distributed over many thousands of bags of potatoes (and other items) sold by that merchant, not just the 10 bags you bought to earn the free one.