Originally Posted by
est-gratuite
Hyatt has the tiniest footprint of all the major hotel points programs, and the idea of the partnership with SLH was to vastly increase presence in places where there was no branded Hyatt hotel. A great idea in principle, but for some reason it did not work out fro Hyatt..
If Hilton has the exact same arrangement as Hyatt did then it will be a lame duck from the start, especially considering Hilton's worldwide footprint is much larger.
If Hilton members want to be motivated to book these properties the benefits have to be near identical to what Gold and Diamonds get as a normal Hilton branded property. Also, it can't be cheaper to book direct on SLH's website.
Not sure what Hilton gains from this except some extra presence in some well off countries with low populations.
The typical benefit I get from Hilton Diamond is a free breakfast, that's it.
If it wasn't easy for me to hit the qualification stay count, I am not sure I would bother renewing diamond despite being a diamond for 20 years now. It is a long time since Hilton was my chain of choice and even less so these days where rounds of cost and service cutting effectively get me a Hampton like experience in many of the brands. This is also why I am not yet LT Diamond because I tend to pick Hilton as a last resort not a first choice.
This is in my view is down to the exponential growth of Diamond numbers, fed by the US "buy status" credit cards. You just cannot treat a large number of status guests the same way you can a smaller number. This is why I pretty much stopped staying with Marriott (unless I must have a 4pm checkout), after they effectively gutted the Starwood Preferred Guest scheme. I do wonder why people bother to buy status given how little status with Hilton seems to be worth.
SLH integrated right into HH would be a game changer for me as I would spend significant sums on SLH properties if I had some incentive (points and stay credit would be part of it, breakfast and potential upgrade would be another). I used Mr & Mrs Smith a lot as a IHG Diamond and found the Smith Gold benefits and the points credit really worthwhile. If Hilton did something similar with SLH I would be quite happy, free breakfast would be nice too. SLH also has a decent range of ski properties which Hilton currently lack. Shame this is coming a little late for me to do Cape Fahn the week after next.
I suspect that neither SLH properties nor Hilton want vast numbers of HH members flipping to SLH but it does fill a good niche that is a big gap for Hilton at the moment in the boutique/high service market segment where Hilton presence with Conrad and WA can best be described as "limited".