Goldorak

I sincerely doubt there will be tons of new Plat members, with all the restrictions still in place for the coming months. And if it was the case, I think the hotels will be very happy to see them.

3544quebec

I'll end 2020 about $US1200 short of making Diamond but have worked out that I'll need a spend of just $US4500 at Mercure+ or $9000 at Ibis to get Diamond in 2021 -should take about 3 months I expect.

Juntima

There have already been tons of new Plat in Thailand with many ibis go as low as $10 a night. Actually, in quite a while I have not encountered a non-plat here lol.

CanadaDH

If somebody has the mental fortitude to endure 60 nights in a $10 ibis, then that's a level of loyalty that should be rewarded. They deserve that status!

Juntima

Lol. They are actually quite a decent ibis in the heart of Bangkok, where charged decent price before Covid time, but reduced to peanuts because of the crisis. I myself am not quite sure how they survive with this extremely low rate, but I guess they will have to do what they have to do. Every hotels have slashed their price to an all time low, be it Waldorf or St. Regis. That being said, some of these new plat just do the check-in and check-out, they do not actually stay for the whole 60 nights. Almost like a $600 ticket to Platinum. ^^!

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CanadaDH

If you don't actually have to stay there, then that would seem like a good deal. I don't know how any hotel can find it economical to remain open at $10/night. I would have thought closing the doors, laying off the staff, setting back the HVAC, and waiting until demand picks up would lose less money than remaining open at $10/night. Maybe even use the closure to do some renovations to perhaps be able to command a higher rate when demand eventually returns. But good for them if they can still make a buck at that price. It's just pretty funny to see a room rate that's 25%-35% of what many hotels charge just to park for the day!

kaizen7

There are couple of Ibises that goes around $15/night here and they are quite decent.

Personally I prefer getting status using status point though

kevino

At most Ibis' in Thailand you can see how many Plats. there are looking at the breakfast room list. Plats. are usually highlighted. Pre-covid, I've never seen more than 2-3 (besides myself). Not sure about now.

And the 2-3 I would see on the breakfast list tended to not have their room numbers crossed, meaning they did not go for breakfast that day (I usually go to breakfast late, right before closing).

escape4

If I did not already have status with Accor, I would seriously consider spending $600 to get Platinum status and I would not stay in the room. Just the value of free breakfast for subsequent Accor stays alone would cover the cost I think.

Same here, however will we not earn suite nights twice as fast beyond the 26k status points we already have? So it's only useless if we would have earned the maximum number of 12 suite nights even without the double counting?

CanadaDH

That's a good point. Unless they say differently, it probably would mean you'd earn SNUs twice as fast. But for me, there are two reasons why that won't really help me. The first is that my SNUs go unused, because it's difficult to find value in using them. Secondly, I would have hit the max anyway. I have over 26,000 points from a July stay that will be carried over. And my 2021 vacation bookings (assuming COVID doesn't cancel them) will earn ~45,000 depending on the F/X rate at the time of stay, before the 2 for 1 earning comes into play. That means I'd finish 2021 with somewhere north of 116,000 status points, and you would reach the maximum 12 SNUs at only 54,000 points. That's why this will give me literally zero incremental benefit. But if they were reward points being doubled, that would be a nice extra discount!

escape4

I guess it depends where you travel, but it might be a good year to consider diversifying into other hotel chains if you have not done so already I personally find that many hotel chain benefits give diminishing value at the high end, for example Hyatt and Marriott give nothing incremental after 100 nights. So they all push me to diversify.

Regarding the Accor suite night awards, I also find it difficult to use them for good value. Interestingly, I found a few hotels willing to upgrade me to a suite simply because they were sympathetic to my cause when seeing how many are left unused in my account! So I occasionally end up in a suite without using the awards, so their power might be more simply by being in the account. Odd, I know. Bottom line I am happy just sitting on a stash of suite night awards and not use them at all, they end up getting me into suites once in a while nonetheless!

CanadaDH

I could never get close to 100 nights at any hotel chain! Perhaps once I retire, but for now, I have 5 weeks total vacation per year, so that's pretty much a hard cap on the number of nights I can stay at any hotel, plus the occasional long weekend getaway. And some of those vacation weeks, I just spend at home (like this week at Christmas). I don't choose my hotels primarily based on the the chain/loyalty program. I simply choose the best hotel for the destination that I happen to be visiting. I suppose you could say my loyalty is to the individual properties, rather than the chain managing them. The loyalty program to me, if there is one, is merely a factor into calculating the price of the stay, to determine overall value. But, after Fairmont, I think I have more nights with Four Seasons, which has no loyalty program or benefits, and I've chosen FS in places that had Fairmont, Raffles and Sofitel options available. In those situations, I suppose none of the ALL benefits were enough to overcome that particular FS being a better hotel than the local Raffles or Fairmont. Perhaps if the SNUs were more useful, it would have tipped the scales in their favour.

I would not have thought that just having SNUs in your account gets you anything. I'd be surprised if anybody at the hotel even checked to see how many unused SNUs any particular guest had sitting in their account. Unless it's a statistic that is automatically highlighted on a guest profile screen during the check-in process, why would they even bother to look that up?

escape4

They check when I bring it up to their attention
Otherwise you are right, they will not go out of their way to look.

wkndtraveler

This is certainly good news for those who can actually travel and stay at hotels but what about the rest of us who can’t? It’s good to bear in mind that this might mean there won’t be new status extensions anymore.

I’m not as optimistic as Accor and I don’t think that traveling will resume anytime soon. Personally, I haven’t flown since March and Accor is nonexistent in my country of living. Thus, I haven’t been able to collect any status points nor benefit from being a diamond member, apart from a few stays in the beginning of the year.

I wish I could pause my status for now.

wkndtraveler

I still have the courtesy points (13,000) from spring 2020 in my Accor profile. Are they also valid until the end of this year? If so then this is just great. I understood that only the status points earned between July 2020 and December 2020 will be valid until December 2021.