bocastephen

Is there any announcement or confirmation of how the HI Express breakfast will change mid-long term going forward once the current virus crisis subsides? Will they restore the old breakfast option or is that gone forever, and it's just a grab-go bag?

sdsearch

Why should there be? The current virus is not likely to subside for many months if not a year or more (ie, when most people can get vaccinated). Since nobody knows when that might be, why should anyone in a hotel chain be making announcements about it? They're focus on the present and the near future.

Plus it'll partly be driven by general health recommendations (from the CDC and others), and no one knows what that will be "once the current virus crisis subsides".

About the main thing that can be said is that for the foreseeable future, a hotel with a made-to-order breakfast sounds much better to me than a hotel which used to have only a buffet breakfast. The problem with that at IHG is that IHG doesn't promise free breakfast to elites at any made-to-order-breakfast IHG brands, while most of their competitors do. So for me that translates to staying less at IHG (where Holiday Inn Express and Staybridge Suites were the brands I would stay at the most) and more in other programs for now.

While there are other possible solutions in the current environment to buffet breakfasts other than grab-go bags, they typically involve changing the infrastructure in the breakfast room (to support individually wrapped portions that can be kept heated requires something totally different than what is needed to keep a buffet heated). But not all hotels are going to want to go that expense when they don't know how long this will last, plus in case it requires more staff at the same time as room bookings are way down.