Originally Posted by
escape4
If this is the case, it means that most of your guests stayed at 1-2 brands per year only, and those who did 3+ were at 30 nights anyway. Consequently, if you had many guests at 1-2 brands only per year, that means giving out only 1-2 local experiences per year, then unsurprisingly based on such numbers the new program will be more "generous".
However for the FT crowd I suspect many here had the opportunity to stay at far more than 3 brands per year and simply getting 7% cash back will be a significant decline in value.
We welcome your feedback and we'd like to get all types of members more engaged with the new programme, of course. In a typical hotel or airline loyalty programme, elite tier members represent around 5% of the membership base but 35% of the revenues, so they are very important.
We feel that we have corrected some unfairnesses in the old programme - for example we had a surprisingly large number of members who would take a 7-night holiday in a luxury resort, spend $20k on the stay and still be stuck on Gold level because we were only counting nights. That didn't feel right and previously we would try to correct it on an ad hoc basis but now those members will be properly promoted to the elite tiers under the new programme rules and receive rewards and status even if that is the only stay they make in a year.
The majority of our members live in locations where there is only 1 brand or maybe 2 brands available, so they would need to travel internationally to qualify for Titanium under the brand criterion. That has been difficult for them, especially over the last couple of years. They can still earn elite status through nights or spend criteria under the new programme. This will be the main way that most members qualify for Titanium tier.
The real road warriors who are doing a very large number of nights and/or brands and/or spending in a year will now be considered for the Red tier, which I'm not allowed to discuss but it certainly has richer benefits than the old Black tier or the new Titanium. It used to be reserved for VIPs and hotel owners but now it's open to the super-members. I'm sure that someone from FT will qualify in 2022 and they will be able to share the information, if they wish.
Under the previous version of the programme, you could optimize rewards (in the form of Local Experiences) by staying a small number of nights at a variety of different brands while paying low room rates. That was actually logistically difficult for most members, unless they happened to be based somewhere like Dubai, Bangkok, Singapore or London, where we have a range of brands available. Very few people followed that path. We think the new system is fairer while still offering rewards for the high-repeating guests and the high-spending guests.
On the check-in/ check-out timings, I think most hotels will be flexible towards Titanium members whenever they can, regardless of what it says in the rules. Just ask nicely and you might be pleasantly surprised. But sometimes it is simply not possible - the pandemic has driven very high levels of demand into our hotels in regions like the Maldives and Dubai over the Christmas and New Year period.