IMH

I want to say "unbelievable", but for some reason I can't. Accor has been working on ALL for at least a year now, or should have been.

At the risk of repeating points made several times above, if Diamond isn't actually going to be special, with more in the way of guaranteed benefits, then all it will do devalue Platinum status. I'm going to end 2019 with 25 Accor stays, 60 nights and around 23,000 points. Right now I can't imagine directing a similar amount of business to Accor next year.

As for "retraining" -- I think someone's having a laugh.

nkob

I have to agree
I did hope on more and better benefits as mentioned before
i see not enough difference between plat and diamond
positiv - retraining
-better customer care meaby
i will ask and see in dec what is the outcome of the retraining
and if the guaranteed suite upgrade is now a reality
greetings
cornelis

CanadaDH

I was thinking the opposite. Since Diamond doesn't offer anything useful beyond Platinum, it doesn't devalue Platinum at all. Diamond devalues itself by not offering anything. Just go for Platinum and stop there, and put any additional business to other chains, and you'll be way ahead.

I can't understand what Accor is thinking here. Why offer a status that offers a customer no reason to care to get there? I thought the whole point of a loyalty program was to incent your customers to spend money with you? But once you've hit 14,000 points, you've basically reached the top, and can easily go elsewhere.

IMH

What you say makes sense, but I suspect we'll see a negative effect in the form of hotel staff (quite reasonably, from their point of view) no longer seeing Platinum as the top tier.

You're certainly right that -- based on what we know so far and starflyergold saying we shouldn't expect any further announcements -- no one is likely to see Diamond as worth aspiring to.

starflyergold

Just to be clear, the Diamond level will be as is. That is not to say that it might not evolve eventually, but on the 1st of January the perks we know about will be the perks.

nrouxel

I was also surprised to learn that suite upgrades will have to be done via the phone at the beginning, but Rome was not built in a day, and this should be integrated into the new app quickly.
From what I understand, the biggest challenge for Accor is the integration of a common reservation/customer loyalty system applicable to all the [39] brands of Accor. It may sound simple for us, but it seems like a difficult task for which other hotel groups have had a hard time (think SPG / Marriott).
No changes are expected for the moment for status perks for ALL, which is a disappointment for me because the program does not seem to me as generous as that of other large hotel groups (Hilton or Marriott).
For the moment, Accor's strategy is to establish new partnerships so that ALL members can earn and spend points not only in hotels but also with tourism and leisure companies in general (ALL / AFKL Flying Blue - enhanced partnership for example). New partnerships are expected to be announced in 2020.
The good news for me is that all hotels are being retrained currently on loyalty issues. It's time for the hotels of the group to really apply the loyalty program: I am particularly thinking of hotels in France where often I have to explain to hoteliers what LCAH is.

matmatlr

An interesting article (in french) about ALL positioning and their wish to offer a global experience (not limited to hotels)

https://www.magazine-decideurs.com/n...ce=Emailvision

fransknorge

I read the interview. My Bullsh!t Bingo grid is full.
Honestly this guy is great at making a mountain from a mole.
This part is intriguing:
Assuming again that the personal data they gave me are correct, there is no such thing for me for example. Despite me posting about Accor here and on Twitter.

kaizen7

Agree with the integration issues .... they only have 1 year human timescale to do ALL these ... from integrating those new brands hotel, new loyalty program branding, and adding extra feature like SNA

The almighty Bonvoy have few years to do this and they still manage to Bonvoyed it

About ALL the benefit of Diamond members, honestly I did find its very weak and it really didn't match the tier requirements.

While Bonvoy Ambassador tier similarly lack of confirmed benefits (Your24 have to be requested and approved by property and it seems like the chance of rejection is pretty high) other than having an ambassador assigned to you which have very different in quality, they do have significant advantage of more generous upgrade benefit. (Although this also sometimes ignored by the property and Marriott never bother to make a fuss about it.)

starflyergold

I strongly recommend Monsieur Dubois reads https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/acco...ine-check.html here on FT before making nonsensical statements such as

Bingo indeed

It frees up exactly nothing in my humble opinion.

R2

+1. The online check-in is a big bubble of hot air. A couple of weeks ago I stayed at a Swissotel and despite having done the online check-in, I had to manually (yes!) fill in a form with things like address, email etc at check-in. I challenged the need to do it as not only did I do the online check-in (and I 'only needed to pick up my room key') but they also had all my data in my LCAH profile obviously. The check-in agent was really nice so I filled in a bit and asked her to pass on the feedback to her manager.

Accor IT is one big joke.

kaizen7

I find that even after I did OLCI at either Accor or Marriott hotels, I still need to stop by front desk to show my ID (passport)

Goldorak

OLCI is indeed totally useless and a source of additional IT problems with LCAH. We ALL know that

Goldorak

Indeed, those features are much more difficult to implement than what we think. No wonder why Accor will need more time for this and at least there will be a temporary solution with the customer service by phone.

Maelstrom

I dont see the issue here. What's wrong with ensuring that you are who you say you are?

The rest of the OLCI process should not involve filling out forms and should just involve handing over room keys (which obviously Accor's IT struggle with), but an ID check is pretty essential.