Seeing the credit evolve over time, I think we've begun to see all the ways this has been leveraged across the brand base. Obviously, this is not a factor at breakfast included brands..

Even now, I find the F&B credit is misapplied about a third of the time. Some properties never make a mistake on this, and others are rather sloppy about it. Most common issues are a failure to credit it at all, or crediting for one person when two people were registered to the room. These are generally resolvable without much fanfare, but they should not have to be addressed at all this far down the road.

The offerings, what can be purchased with the F&B credit, and the "what I expect at each property" factor has been altered in unpredictable ways. The Doubletree Brand has long had this issue; you never knew what was on offer at a given property, . The differing F&B offerings were a feature, not a bug, even before the F&B credits were a thing. In contrast, there was a comforting consistency at HGIs; you used to know exactly what to expect from a breakfast perspective Since the credit has gone live, pricing, offerings, value, are all over the place. Some properties provide for the "old style" cooked to order approach, others provide a la carte pricing for everything. Some properties include a number of hot options (which themselves vary from property to property), in the continental breakfast buffet offering. Pricing for this "buffet" option can vary significantly, ranging from 10-15 dollars in many cases, but extending to $19-$24 in some locations. And the traveler has no idea what is in play until they arrive. In many locales, I've begun to lean away from HGI, as the low value of the credit does not sufficiently offset the room rate.

The credit is not likely to ever go away, and has others have noted, seems to have spread to some degree to other North American locales. That said, some consistency would be preferred. .