FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Spire Elite Status + Executive Lounge access

May 31, 2019, 12:53 pm

#27

Land-of-Miles

FlyerTalk Evangelist

Join Date: Dec 2003

Location: MAN and LON

Programs: Mucci, BAEC LT Gold, HH Dia, MR LT Plat, IHG Diamond Amb, Amex Plat

Posts: 13,773

Quote:

Originally Posted by IAN-UK

I think this might be explained by the effort often required to persuade the hotel to act against the Brand Standards it has signed up to. Some lack the confidence to demand, others find it infra dig: but it most certainly can be done.

Notwithstanding your good fortune, those Brand Standards do not include a club lounge upgrade - simply because agreement to do so could not be reached among hotels. It's a sore point: hotels that stick to the standards resent hotels that routinely over-egg their upgrades. They get annoyed when guests rock up saying "I got this treatment at the CP in Timbuctu, why can't I get it here?": just as HQ get pissed off by PC members complaining about a lack of the consistency.

So the corporate bods at HQ tried to impose consistency, and at the same time mollify those hotels that adhere to brand standards. They have issued a number of fatwahs warning hotels that they are required to stick to Brand Standards not only in terms of thread count of bed sheets, but also in terms of lounge access.

Until club access was ruled a brand standard for RAs at ICs, it seemed pretty much routine to play "difficult" hotels off against the other in much the same way. "Paris always gives me Club, so why don't you Mr Park Lane". I think very few, perhaps only Dusseldorf and Athens within my range of ICs, remained unmoved, totally unphased by such arguments. And even Athens softened after i became a regular.

But, yes, a few CPs DO continue give club access routinely, as a matter of course, without persuasion. A number in Asia, but the only European one I can think of off-hand is the Helsinki CP - but I decided that must simply be in compensation for the utilitarian drabness of the property.

Some month's back the Bucharest CP was adamant that it wouldn't play ball. Next day I witnessed a guest at check-in launch into frothy mouthed DYKWIA tirade about upgrades in general and lounge access in particular.... and they gave way

It infuriated me, but I was moving to the IC the next day, so I let it go.

You might find this message interesting. It's from the manager of a Middle-East CP:
I would like you to be rest assured that we highly value you as one of our Spire Elite IHG Rewards members. We have built up a strong reputation and loyal following with our IHG Rewards members by ensuring our most loyal guests are well looked after and that they receive all their entitled benefits based on their tier level.

Unfortunately, as highlighted by our team, complimentary access to an Executive Lounge is not a benefit for any of the tiers of the IHG Rewards program. We pride ourselves on providing our guests with a high quality consistent experience and this includes the application of IHG Rewards benefits being in line with the IHG Global standards. However, we have extended the access for you as a courtesy for that particular stay.

I totally get that if others experience is not as mine they will feel differently but whilst it seems like every Tom, Dick and Harriet these days is a Hilton Diamond with an inexorable drag on lounge occupancy and provisioning, I have not had to fight anywhere for lounge access in the UK in the last 2 years wherever there was a lounge at a non IC property. The sole exception was the CP Stratford Upon Avon which proactively gave me lounge access on an initial points stay then denied it on a revenue stay a few weeks later and after some words were exchanged they relented.

I have stayed week in, week out at a variety of UK CP’s where lounge access was not grudgingly given it was proactively offered. So I just don’t buy this whole head office edict forcing good properties not to go beyond brand standards which we all know are minimal. I will continue not to buy this unless I see some tangible evidence that it is a reality rather than hearsay.

it may well be that some over zealous regional managers are making up their own rules but I have not seen any evidence of that and when my own experience is so diametrically opposite to yours it is only fair to point that out to other members and let them decide what works for them.

i do think the somewhat pathetic brand standards hurt IHG a lot more than their treatment of elites. Take Holiday Inn a brand which I would normally walk over hot coals to avoid staying with. Yet you have the HI Manchester Piccadilly which is better in almost every respect than the Doubletree next door and is unlike any other HI I have ever stayed in (I have stayed at some of the more modern properties too like Stratford and Media City but they tend to have poky rooms and unappealing public spaces).

What hurts IHG so badly in my view is that when staying at a property you haven’t visited before it is difficult to know if the property will be new, refurbed or last saw a lick of paint 20 years ago. Whether a room will be decent and spacious with a good free internet connection or old and crap with poor mobile broadband and a stiff fee for acceptable internet access. Also whether a higher end brand like CP will really be better than a HI etc (I have sometimes found the reverse).

The bottom line in the UK at least is that many CP’s (the only brand apart from IC with Club lounges) do give access to Spires/RAs. If they didn’t I simply wouldn’t stay with them, or would other sensible Spires who have a choice of chain.

Last edited by Land-of-Miles; May 31, 2019 at 1:05 pm

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