Originally Posted by
Land-of-Miles
A simple total cumulative spend does nothing to indicate to properties that a RA is worth lavishing with upgrades and freebies. A high spend per night (beyond the absurdity of a 2 nights stay in a very expensive room) with significant non room spend does at least dangle a carrot to the properties too.
While individual hotels of course welcome those who spend generously per night, IHG itself has a special place in its heart for those who who spend substantial amounts overall and stay frequently at ICs and other IHG branded hotels. There's the tension: persuading managers and owners that it's in their long-term interest to support the programme, even though they might see little benefit from some individual guests.
Perhaps tedious to follow through on that, but a central aim of the programme is to ensure that Madrid's cherished frequent guests continue to get high levels of service on a one-off, one-night stay in Jakarta. So Madrid learns to be kind to the one-off visitor. Most hotels get it, but some drag their heels a little.
Same tension among airline and their alliance masters: Qatar resents giving benefits to the rag tag and bobtails of its partner airlines: so it doesn't, or soes so selectively.
I think we agree that no singe metric is entirely satisfactory. It takes some eyeballing of spend, nights, brands and geographic spread. Spend per stay/night naturally falls out of those data.