You are too kind.

If I stay in an Ibis or Ibis Budget hotel it isn't necessarily because I only care about price. It's more likely to be because all the hotels in a particular location are operating in that price category. In which case Accor might benefit from giving me a reason to choose their property over a Travelodge or Premier Inn.

Meanwhile, back in the world of things that happen more often, I'm still choosing non-Accor hotels over Fairmonts because of the lack of integration.

ibis is part of LCAH, ibis budget is not. They serve different market segments. ibis is frequently ~50% more expensive than a nearby ibis budget.

I disagree. If in a location you have only lowest-budget economy hotels, there's a reason for that. Usually, the reason is that all but a few customers only care about price (and a basic level of cleanliness). It doesn't make sense to expend the resources so that you can take care of the few and far between status customers. (And even if you did, those few status customers may be highly budget-concious as well. They may happily take the status benefits but don't show you any loyalty if the budget motel across the street is slightly cheaper.....)

So, I don't think your point changes my argument at all. To me, it seems unworldly to complain that Accor's lowest-cost brands don't participate in LCAH.

I personally don't stay at anything lower than a Mercure. Sometimes on the very odd occasion i might only be able to stay in an Ibis as its the only option for over 50kms. Maybe my standards are too high? One thing Accor needs in Asia especially is more spread of mid level hotels (grand mercure/novotel or mercure) in places like China to cover more cities which may have still over a million residents. And it would be lovely if they added a couple more options in places like Korea (less so), Japan (definitely lacking),Philippines (Only has 2 hotels in Manila for the whole country) and Taiwan (has only 1 hotel).

If ibis budget is the only Accor hotel within 20/30kms then they could offer 1 or 2 rooms (very limited number) with more facilities that could include status points but also would be 30-50% more expensive. The room you cannot upgrade to from lower rooms but it would allow welcome drinks (cans of soda or beer). Now it would depend if it would ruin the ibis budget model. But I could understand some small towns in Europe may only have an Ibis budget.

Change is coming
 

Word has it that tomorrow will see an announcement on some merger related loyalty programme changes. ;)

As we are moving to the next phase, the integration of the FPC and Circle programmes, I have moved integration related posts to a new thread: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/acco...corhotels.html