No Miles For Online Bookings?
 

There's an alarming trend in the hotel frequency biz, essentially that hotel chains will not offer points / miles for any online bookings made through other websites than their own brand sites. . .this includes Expedia, Travelocity, and other major online booking sites where points WILL NOT be awarded, regardless of elite level in the program.

Can airlines be too far behind?. . . :eek:

You meant to post this somewhere other than the Delta forum, right?? :) :D

Anyway - makes sense to me. What better way to cut out the travel agents?

not too far behind....CO will only award full Elite qualification miles for discount fares booked on its own website. Booked over the phone, through partners, or other websites (expedia, orbitz, etc.) will only yield 50%.

However, being an exceptionally customer unfriendly move, and having its rules implemented in a way which makes interpreting the tax code as easy as reading a Jack and Jill book, our hopes at the CO board is for this abomination to be eradicated as new leadership takes over at CO.

If CO drops the EQMs, then maybe there is hope here at DL that MQMs will be gone too.

As for the hotel issue, I can understand limited benefits for "opaque" bookings (priceline, hotwire), but restricting benefits and stay credit for expedia and orbitz bookings (where the customer chooses the property) is, in my view, short-sighted and silly.

This thread truly belongs in MilesBuzz, and that is where it is headed. :)

Rssrsvp - Moderator

The hotel industry saw what happend to the airlines and do not want to go down the same path. The airlines have given up the ability to control their product distribution on the internet. By making people use their own web sites to gurantee the best prices and to get full ff points, the hotel industry is taking a step in the right direction.

its to stop you looking at other hotels .. :D

why would a hotel chain want you to look at the competition?
you may see a better deal and they loose a booking. :D

Most major chains have a lowest price guarantee on their website anyway. It doesnt count for priceline or those types of sites, but if you find a lower rate on expedia or orbitz, etc... they will at least match it and sometimes even give you more off.

I wholeheartedly agree with the hotels in making this move. It truly returns to the notion of rewarding those who bring the most business to these hotel grooups, and when someone who uses a third party booking site, pays a fraction of what I pay, and then also gets points/status recognition benefits, it makes someone like feel less wanted by the chain. Margins are tight enough in the travel industry these days, and the competition cut throat. This in the end will benefit those of us who invoke our loyalty.

Airlines faced the same cost pressures, and while it is not great to see the cheapest fares increasingly not garner status miles on some carriers, it is another case of rewarding with true benefits, those who spend more with the airline.

Most hotel groups and airlines now offer their cheapest pricing on their websites, so in the end we have the ultimate choice to make, and price to pay for status.

I don't mind what the hotels are doing. I mean, I wish I could have my cake and eat it too, but I understand why they aren't giving elite bennies to third-party bookings.

The problem as I see it is that there is no "middle ground". Take an example like New York City: a typical Marriott is probably $225/nt. booked at Marriott.com with full benefits. A four-star is $95/nt. booked third-party. In most cases, my booking would go to the third-party. That's a huge gap.

But what if Marriott stepped in and offered a product for $125 with limited benefits and the same no-change/no-cancel rules that the third parties do? (At least on nights when they can't fill the hotel 100% full with $225/nt. guests.)

They wouldn't cannibalize the $225 guy because the ability to cancel at 6PM is paramount in his world. But they would pull in some of the third-party folks like me who want a Marriott and would accept some sort of middle ground on benefits. (Specifically, I'd take it as long as the bed/smoke guarantee that MR Golds usually get remained in place. No-points and no-upgrades is okay if they are truly getting down into those low third-party rates.)

Maybe it's just a can of worms that the hotels don't want to get involved with. Maybe they think their corporate customers will find a way to "work the system" and avoid paying the $225. That's the only reason I can think of why there is such a gigantic gap between the best third party rate and the best hotel-site (fully cancelable) rate. They want to treat third-party guy like crap so that full-rack-rate guy knows how good he has it.

We need to be more specific with the product types being compared between hotels and airlines. Are we comparing Priceline/Hotwire with published rates, or we are comparing different distribution channels on the same rate?

For example, you can go to the Marriott website and select a non-refundable rate, and you can go to Expedia.com and select a regular rate for the same Marriott. In that case, why should the cheap rate booked through Marriott be rewarded more than the published, refundable rate booked through Expedia? If there is to be any difference, it should be the opposite, where the non-refundable rate is also non-upgradeable and non-awardable.

As far as airlines are concerned, I believe Delta has struck a perfect balance. They still award the same SkyMiles on any published fare (i.e., not Priceline), regardless of distribution channel, they give you 500 bonus miles for booking on delta.com, and the MQM scheme separates the cheapies from the spendthrifts in the Medallion program.

Awarding no frequent flyer miles on a published fare just because it is booked through Travelocity, et al, makes no sense at all. That would be like a hotel publishing a refundable rate of $100 on their website but a non-refundable $100 rate on Travelocity. Talk about shooing away your customers!

Yes, some people are upset at Delta for implementing the MQM scheme, but the large majority of Delta's passengers are not Medallion, many of whom don't even know what "Medallion" means. However, when it comes to plain old frequent flyer miles that anyone can earn, I would imagine that most people on the plane are earning miles on their tickets, and if you cut them off they will go elsewhere.

Hello All
Interesting thread.
I'm sure we all understand the direction hotel programs have taken to gain control over their pricing and inventory.
The question is does it come at a cost ?
In my case the answer is absolutely.
While I might change my position over time this year I decided I would move the lions share of my business all to Hyatt.
Have rewarded them with every kind of booking under the sun low revenue and high revenue stays.
I am all about a free market and giving the customer a choice where to book and choose from.
I believe they are almost questions of legality out there with some hotel companies conspiring to fix prices with their online competitors.
While I am certainly no lawyer there is indication of such actions.
I assume it must be legal to some degree or they wouldn't be doing it.

Now I certainly understand not awarding point or mile credit on those that choose not to reward on opaque sites such as Priceline.
But Expedia or other such similar sites ?
And no stay credit or benefits during a stay after years or in some cases many years of loyalty to a brand ?
Lets face it loyalty is pretty tough out there to begin with.
Telling me how to pay, where and how much isn't going to inspire my loyaty anywhere. Not untill the day there are no choices.
I take concern with this whole issue and certainly admire a company like Hyatt who says to its customer come stay with us !
We don't care how you book or where just stay, pay and be rewarded .
At least in most cases.
In my book it doesn't get any better then that.

For today where possible they are my hotel company of choice and in many cases they have rational pricing decisions on their product/inventory so I don't always need to keep shopping for the best rate.
Its called TRUST something I lack with a wide variety of their
competitors :(
Thanks for the post.

Quick question...
 

Why would you ever use Expedia, Travelocity, etc. for a hotel booking if they didn't offer a pretty good advantage over the hotel site to do so? Specifically - their niche is that they offer much cheaper rates with more restrictive rules. I use Expedia Special Rates from time to time when I absolutely want a property with a kitchen (in a Priceline zone where I can't specifically get that). That makes sense: that is Expedia's unique product. In certain cases, they do kind of fill that gap between Priceline and the full rate that I was writing about above.

I understand that you could also find the fully-refundable rates on Expedia.com (in fact, I see them there for Hampton Inns all the time), but if I want one of those I will go to the hotel site every time to book it. I don't understand why I would book that rate through Expedia when I can just book it through HHonors.com and know that I am only dealing with 1 confirmation number, 1 computer system to possibly mess things up, etc.

If I already know exactly what hotel I want, I'll go to the hotel's website, because it's easier to book that way.

If I don't know in advance which hotel I want (I have no hotel loyalty), I'll go to Expedia or Travelocity, because I can see all the choices at once.

Basically, whatever option is more convenient is the one I take.

I do that too - all the time. (I use Travelaxe and other tools as well.) But once I settle on one I go directly to that hotel's website to make sure I'm seeing all rates. The only reason I'd ever not use the hotel website is if Expedia/Travelocity beat it with terms I could live with. Tie goes to the hotel website...

This misunderstands the economics of hotel room distribution.

Sites like Expedia, Orbitz, and Travelocity have in some cases negotiated 30% discounts on room rates which they then take as profit when selling the rooms to customers.

That's why the hotel chains are desperately trying to drive business away from third party websites and to their own distribution channels.

Airlines on the other hand haven't been paying out similar kinds of commissions on tickets.