Originally Posted by
scubaccr
I don't see any reason to think there is two bites at RA. The spend at IC still needs to be the calendar year 1st Jan - 31st Dec nights. If you fall short of the RA spend target during 2018 calendar year it is false to conclude that Jan2019 IC spend would be counted if your 2018 spend is too low for RA level.
Issue with processing on 4th Jan is any 'borderline' cases staying at IC on multinight Xmas-Jan stays into early Jan2019 would not get nights posted and thus counted until maybe Jan 10th at earliest. Thus it makes sense to me that Saltlake delay processing until later in January, and as a consequence set processing as 1st Feb with RA expiry 31st Jan rather than 31st Dec seems very reasonable.
For current RAs who know they won't requalify for 2019, as this is first year with 31st Jan expiry, I would not rely on that RA status to not dissapear mid January onwards. This afterall is why other hotel loyalty schemes whilst using calendar year qualification, process status feb/march, eg Marriott
not sure why you are so adamant?
you can't recall not that long ago when the first sweep of the account to determine if you'd satisfied the criteria occurred two months prior to the end of your RA year?
the second sweep was one month before your year end, and the final bite of the cherry (sweep) was at your year end. there was two months to up activity if needed.
they then reduced to one month out. so three bites to two bites. and that left one month to drive activity, if you hadn't hit RA.
and business was always assessed on an annual basis, according to your RA year.
up until the program change two years ago, my RA year happened to be calendar year, by chance.
first sweep was end of October, and subsequent sweeps if required at the end of November, and then finally end of December.
hypothetically, if i hadn't hit the criteria by the end of Oct, or Nov for the respective preceding year, i wouldn't know util the final sweep at end of Dec, so in effect no different to the system utilised for the past two years, with respect to no notice time, and issues of whether to book IHG for January stays.
as previously stated, i hope they revert to the older playbook, and run at least two sweeps, end of Nov, and Dec, preferably three, and start at the end of Oct, giving more adequate notice time, and three bites of the cherry.