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Starwood + Marriott: How Will Hilton Respond? Elite Status Matches?

Old Nov 25, 2015, 11:43 pm
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We're winding down for the Thanksgiving holiday and, as a heads up, I will be out of the office until Monday, but I wanted to let you know about our status match program...

We've been receiving a number of requests and yes, we do match status from other programs and we'd love to be your travel home.
We are matching status for 2016. To make sure you're all set for the year, please submit your request by January 11, 2016. You'll enjoy that status through March 2017.

All you need is something that shows your elite tier in another program and an HHonors number.

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Updated 12/18/15:

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Starwood + Marriott: How Will Hilton Respond? Elite Status Matches?

Old Nov 16, 2015, 12:09 pm
  #1  
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Starwood + Marriott: How Will Hilton Respond? Elite Status Matches?

Now that Starwood and Marriott are apparently going to be together, how do you think Hilton will respond?

I've heard rumors around the idea that Hilton wants to add more budget properties to HHonors. I think it would also be interesting to see what a Hilton + Hyatt relationship would look like. There are many possibilities here!

I would love to open a conversation to see what other people are thinking, what facts we have at the moment, and what we would like to see from Hilton (regarding this topic) moving forward. Will Hilton merge with another chain? Will they continue to expand with their current projects (Curio, Canopy, etc.)?
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Old Nov 16, 2015, 1:17 pm
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IMHO Hilton will respond with a yawn. Starwood isn't big enough to make Marriott an existential threat to Hilton or IHG. Starwood only has about 1/4 the properties of the big 3 so the dynamic doesn't change much with the acquisition. The industry is still very, very fragmented. (Look at Marriott's total room count as a fraction of industry room count, or better yet, hotel industry plus Airbnb.)
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Old Nov 16, 2015, 1:50 pm
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I mean, the merger will likely make Hilton look comparatively weak at the upper end, where domestically its offerings mostly consist of tired business Hilton-branded properties and the occasional Conrad or oddball Curio or whatever. But I doubt there will be much reaction. Hilton was already losing upper-tier and "lifestyle" customers to SPG, so I don't see how it would differ to continue losing them to SPG + Marriott. It won't be losing any customers that it wasn't losing already.
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Old Nov 16, 2015, 2:09 pm
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Originally Posted by arlflyer
I mean, the merger will likely make Hilton look comparatively weak at the upper end, where domestically its offerings mostly consist of tired business Hilton-branded properties and the occasional Conrad or oddball Curio or whatever. But I doubt there will be much reaction. Hilton was already losing upper-tier and "lifestyle" customers to SPG, so I don't see how it would differ to continue losing them to SPG + Marriott. It won't be losing any customers that it wasn't losing already.
From everything I have read, Hilton finds the the mid-to-lower tier properties more profitable, especially the non-full service ones, so I don't think they are going to be too upset by that trend.
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Old Nov 16, 2015, 2:10 pm
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Originally Posted by Miesque
From everything I have read, Hilton finds the the mid-to-lower tier properties more profitable, especially the non-full service ones, so I don't think they are going to be too upset by that trend.
Agreed. In my opinion, Hampton is probably the strongest brand in the portfolio. Wouldn't surprise me if it was their biggest moneymaker too, at least domestically.
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Old Nov 16, 2015, 3:01 pm
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I'd like to think that Hilton cares about having a strong portfolio and value proposition to people who do a wide variety of stays for both business and leisure.

If they do, it would really be nice to see them beef up their airline partnerships. Long ago, there was a decent HH-AA relationship with a unique benefit that you could move quite a few AA miles to HH points at a relatively lossless (at the time) rate of 1:2. (Now would need to be 1:3 to be compelling.) But transfers aside, some sort of Marriott-United style partnership between HH and AA would be interesting. Delta could find itself in play shortly, but I'd honestly rather have HH-AA than HH-DL.

But those who say HH will just have a big fat yawn are probably right...
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Old Nov 16, 2015, 3:07 pm
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Another big yawn here.
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Old Nov 16, 2015, 3:41 pm
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Honestly this might put pressure on Hyatt and Hilton to merge. Hyatt is staring to grow its select-service chain with Hyatt Place but are they growing in that area fast enough? Hilton has the low-mid end covered very well, some high end brands but really not enough now to compete against a Marriott/SPG combination. I could see this leading to talks between Hyatt and Hilton resulting in the following brand mapping.

Park Hyatt - Waldorf-Astoria
Andaz - Canopy
Grand Hyatt - Mixture of Hilton and Conrad
Hyatt Regency - Hilton
Hyatt - Hilton
Hyatt Centric - Mix of Hilton and Doubletree
Hyatt Place - Hilton Garden Inn
Hyatt House - Either Home2Suites or Homewood Suites
Hyatt Zilara and Hyatt Ziva - Hilton All Inclusive Resorts (or Curio Collection)
Hyatt Residence Club - Hilton Grand Vacations
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Old Nov 16, 2015, 4:11 pm
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Originally Posted by NYC2TheWorld
Honestly this might put pressure on Hyatt and Hilton to merge. Hyatt is staring to grow its select-service chain with Hyatt Place but are they growing in that area fast enough? Hilton has the low-mid end covered very well, some high end brands but really not enough now to compete against a Marriott/SPG combination. I could see this leading to talks between Hyatt and Hilton resulting in the following brand mapping.

Park Hyatt - Waldorf-Astoria
Andaz - Canopy
Grand Hyatt - Mixture of Hilton and Conrad
Hyatt Regency - Hilton
Hyatt - Hilton
Hyatt Centric - Mix of Hilton and Doubletree
Hyatt Place - Hilton Garden Inn
Hyatt House - Either Home2Suites or Homewood Suites
Hyatt Zilara and Hyatt Ziva - Hilton All Inclusive Resorts (or Curio Collection)
Hyatt Residence Club - Hilton Grand Vacations
+1
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Old Nov 16, 2015, 4:32 pm
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Bit off-topic, but when a merger like this occurs, who pays for the changing of signage? Are the franchise owners on the hook for upgrading to new logos everywhere, or will Marriott cover the cost?
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Old Nov 16, 2015, 5:01 pm
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Originally Posted by NYC2TheWorld
Honestly this might put pressure on Hyatt and Hilton to merge. Hyatt is staring to grow its select-service chain with Hyatt Place but are they growing in that area fast enough? Hilton has the low-mid end covered very well, some high end brands but really not enough now to compete against a Marriott/SPG combination. I could see this leading to talks between Hyatt and Hilton resulting in the following brand mapping.

Park Hyatt - Waldorf-Astoria
Andaz - Canopy
Grand Hyatt - Mixture of Hilton and Conrad
Hyatt Regency - Hilton
Hyatt - Hilton
Hyatt Centric - Mix of Hilton and Doubletree
Hyatt Place - Hilton Garden Inn
Hyatt House - Either Home2Suites or Homewood Suites
Hyatt Zilara and Hyatt Ziva - Hilton All Inclusive Resorts (or Curio Collection)
Hyatt Residence Club - Hilton Grand Vacations
+1
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Old Nov 16, 2015, 6:43 pm
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Originally Posted by fozziedoggie
Bit off-topic, but when a merger like this occurs, who pays for the changing of signage? Are the franchise owners on the hook for upgrading to new logos everywhere, or will Marriott cover the cost?
Although it wasn't a merger, I did work at a Radisson during a logo change. For that, franchises had to pay for the new signage but Corporate tried to make as easy as possible by organizing the manufacturing aspects. The new signage came in a variety of shapes and sizes which could fit existing fixtures.

Hotels were also given a long time (at least two years, if I remember correctly) before compliance was mandatory. That way, franchises could better plan for the expense.

The hotel I worked was actually corporate-owned and operated. So, we were one of the first hotels to get the updated look.

That said, a merger might be a different animal. Franchisee agreements might need to be re-negotiated because some have clauses that profit another same-brand hotel within X miles. If the merger happens and brands go extinct, a smart franchisee might be able to negotiate expenses related to re-flagging.
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Old Nov 16, 2015, 8:36 pm
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Originally Posted by Miesque
From everything I have read, Hilton finds the the mid-to-lower tier properties more profitable, especially the non-full service ones, so I don't think they are going to be too upset by that trend.
Perhaps Hilton should look at buying LaQuinta, which is a single-brand chain/program that's exactly in the "below Hampton" space that Hilton has said they're looking for (ie, it's got a free breakfast, but nowhere near the expanse that Hampton has grown its breakfast to; the one LQ I've stayed at has hard-boiled eggs still in shells and cooked oatmeal and a waffle maker, but no attempts at powdered egg products).
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Old Nov 16, 2015, 8:44 pm
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Originally Posted by sdsearch
Originally Posted by Miesque
From everything I have read, Hilton finds the the mid-to-lower tier properties more profitable, especially the non-full service ones, so I don't think they are going to be too upset by that trend.
Perhaps Hilton should look at buying LaQuinta, which is a single-brand chain/program that's exactly in the "below Hampton" space that Hilton has said they're looking for (ie, it's got a free breakfast, but nowhere near the expanse that Hampton has grown its breakfast to; the one LQ I've stayed at has hard-boiled eggs still in shells and cooked oatmeal and a waffle maker, but no attempts at powdered egg products).
It looks like Blackstone already owns them. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Quinta_Inns_%26_Suites They also own world famous Motel 6.
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Old Nov 17, 2015, 6:23 am
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Originally Posted by HHonors OUTSIDER
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 4.4.2; en-us; LGL31L/V100 Build/KOT49I.L31L10d) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Chrome/30.0.1599.103 Mobile Safari/537.36)



It looks like Blackstone already owns them. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Q...nns_%26_Suites They also own world famous Motel 6.

You beat me to the response. Blackstone has made out like bandits on Hilton and they have figured out what the sweet spot in profitability is.

By the way, I don't think its just Hilton/Blackstone that has figured this out. Much as I really don't like Hyatt Place, I would bet that is also is a reason why Hyatt is pumping those out for new properties relative to the full service Hyatts.
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