Originally Posted by
CanadaDH
Where you can get yourself into trouble, is when you start making decisions about where to stay, because of a loyalty program (which of course is the goal of the program and what the operator wants),
To be fair I would never stay at an Ibis outside of the city if there's better options in my budget inside the city. Especially not a 1* Ibis.
So I still look at "what is a good option", but if there are multiple and one is of the program I'm loyal to, then I'll go for that. Loyalty does come with benefits, in every loyalty program. I do the same with airlines: If I need to fly CPH->BER, then I won't fly with AFKL because, well, that would be stupid. But if I have an option to fly CPH-VLC via Amsterdam/Paris with AFKL instead of via FRA or another transfer hub, well, why not?
Ofcourse there are limits - if CPH-VLC with AFKL is triple the price of CPH-VLC with a *A airline, then I won't doubt on flying *A (has happened a few times recently).
Originally Posted by
macaron35
But if you spend quite some money you need except some perks in return. And in order to do so you need to accumulate points with a program.
And that's why I'd rather stick to one program to go for as much as possible, rather than spread across 2 or 3 programs. I don't travel quite enough (32 hotel nights so far this year) to get to any meaningful status in multiple programs.
All has pretty much showed me they don't need me as member, so I'll draw my conclusions.