Originally Posted by
Horace
From
INFOGRAPHIC: 25 LOYALTY MILESTONES at COLLOQUY:
Hotels were next to see the importance of loyalty programs: Holiday Inn launched its Priority Club in January 1983, followed by Marriott with its Honored Guest program in November of that year and Hilton with HHonors in 1987.
On May 6, 1997, Marriott "replaced and improved" the Honored Guest program to become Marriott Rewards. At that time, Marriott boasted that the new program allowed members to redeem points for "free stays at six Marriott lodging brands representing 1,000 hotels in 30 countries – an increase of 700 hotels."
In 2017, Hilton HHonors became Hilton Honors.
The weird thing is...I don't think the hotel programs got mainstream traction for another decade or more after their inception.
I was a road warrior throughout the 90s...working on big software projects all over the place with lots of other consultants doing the exact same thing. We *all* know the FF game pretty well. This was an era when the biggest programs (AA and UA in particular) were advertising all over airports. Our corporate travel agent sent "pro tip" guides about elite status, upgrades, and even status matches. By then, nobody I knew would fly without an FF account. Even my mom had her FF accounts by the 90s.
Yet when I'd go to a hotel, clerks would sometimes remark that I was the only Marriott Marquis guest of the day, so I'd get an upgrade. I still remember a Hampton Inn putting my name on a sign in the lobby as "guest of the day" because I was the only Silver there! Nearly all of my colleagues would give their AA or UA number to hotel clerks, because back then that's what the big airline programs advertised - their extensive network of hotel and rental car partners. I converted to hotel points early not because I did a bunch of math, but because I was already earning so many AA miles that I figured I might as well get an award room to go along with all of the award flights.
I'd say after 2000 or so, this all changed quite a bit. Marriott Rewards and Hilton HHonors started advertising quite a bit on their own and eventually everybody I knew converted over and became Platinum/Diamond/etc. like me.
The thing I didn't know was how far back Priority Club goes. I figured that was probably a newer one, given that IHG feels more like a loose collection of mostly lower-end brands with one luxury brand at the very top. (e.g., With the core business traveler brands being a big of a gap, except for the recent Kimpton addition.)