The Northwest promo is not diluting the elite program, in that the bonus miles will not count for status. It certainly will help along the trend of mileage inflation, which in turn will mean Northwest will raise award requirements. That seems a general, and perhaps very natural trend over the life cycle of promotional programs such as ff miles. It will ultimately lead to their demise.

Hilton is obviously using their elite level to promote new membership. Yes, that will dilute it. Ini my mind it's already pretty easy to get, and they have all these gold members chasing a limited number of room upgrades. If they want to have even more, that's their business. They have to weigh the costs vs. the benefits.

EPS,

Just curios as to how many times you had stayed at Starwood properties before that horrid event occured that caused you to switch. What happens when Hilton does the same?

If you travel enough you are bound to have a bad experience sooner or later with any airline or hotel chain.

I was there for the annual meeting of a large convention that had booked every available room and all of the function space. The particular incident involved the staff's mishandling of a malfunctioning elevator (I was one of the ones trapped inside) that almost had tragic consequences.

Hotel management decided the best response was to lead us to the bar and offer us all free drinks. Wrong answer.

When you have "a bad experience sooner or later" with an airline, you probably won't be around to care.

Last month, for the PIPP, I stayed at the Long Beach Hilton. Their "Ascari" restaurant (what a horrible name ... Ascaris is an intestinal parasite) is located on the second floor, and overlooks the main lobby (which has a "high ceiling" where the second floor isn't extended to cover it). A few minutes after I finished breakfast, a full-size mirror fell from the wall of the restaurant, over where the registration desk is located. It injured some members of an airline crew, and there was broken glass everywhere. Hilton handled the incident competently and professionally. That's the difference.

At the risk of bringing this thread back on topic http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif may I suggest that we are the cause of the dilution?

Take Hilton for instance. How many of us who are doing the coded challenge (under which one is automatically made a Gold on sign-up, and gets 50K points for four stays in 60 or 90 days) actually received this invitation?

Obviously Hilton sent out the invitations to some people. I would suspect that they decided quite specifically who they wanted to extend the invitation to. I would suspect as well that if they had wanted to extend it to everyone in the world, they knew how to do so. An ad in WSJ, or USA Today comes to mind.

When you call in to register, the person at the Hilton end asks you for the promotion code, and if you know it she puts you in the promotion. She (or he) doesn't inquire as to where you got the code or whether you were ever actually invited to participate.

So, because the code was posted on FlyerTalk lots of us crashed the party. And now we're complaining that too many people are being allowed in? Can anyone say "chutzpah"?

What's the solution? I don't know. Maybe it is the United Airlines solution of targeted promotions that cannot be accepted by persons not actually invited. However, I invite the reader's attention to the threads on the United board that complain bitterly about such perceived "élitism". It would appear that to do so risks creating ill will amongst those already elite at Hilton that might outweigh the (intended) good will of the new invitees.

Maybe it is for just that reason that Hilton isn't rejecting gate-crashers. Maybe they figure that the (relative) few who become Gold using a code they weren't given won't have that much impact on the greater scheme of things. On the other hand, maybe Hilton isn't rejecting the uninvited because many/most of the habitués of this board strongly resemble the target audience for whom the promotion was originally intended - the frequent traveler. "After all," Hilton marketing might say to themselves, "What we're trying to do is to get them to stay at some of our properties and experience elite treatment in the hopes they'll shift their custom to our chain. If they do, we've gained more frequent users. If they don't come back, we haven't lost much since they're not putting additional drain on our elite resources after the promotion ends."

It's a problem. The dilution is greater than intended, but only because some of us have publicly posted an invitation that wasn't intended for everyone, and others of us are taking advantage of it. Not that I'm complaining the person who posted it shouldn't have done it (hey - I'm taking advantage of it too, even though I also am already Gold).

Personally, I'm happy it was posted, but I can recognize that the company probably did not intend it to be, and may not be happy that it was. After all, when they launched their promotion they undoubtedly carefully calculated how much "dilution" they thought they could afford, and invited accordingly. That uninvited people are showing up (thus increasing the dilutive effect) may well not make them happy either, to the extent that it adds more dilution.

Frankly, I'm afraid we sound too much like the guy who is allowed into a party to which he wasn't invited, and then says, "Now that I'm in, you really ought to close the door."

Dang Catman! I thought this thread was going to be about deluded elite programs, not the dilution of them. I am soooooo™ (R. Martel, 2000) disappointed!!! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

Hmmm. I thought Catman had coined another clever new shortcut word

dillusion (dil oo shun) n. 1. the persistent delusion or false belief that magnificent benefits will accrue from mid-level status in highly diluted elite travel programs 2. a Hilton suite for a Gold level member.

p.s. Just for the record, Ess, while it is true (I do believe) that Rudi first used the word sooooooo on FlyerTalk in October of 1998, it is also fair to point out that his younger sister has been using that word since she was a teenager in the late.............well in some earlier decade. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

the soooooooooooo®© rights are shared family rights, so my little sister (only) participates; but as she should also know (she tends to forget sometimes), the first born son still 'comes/serves' first in our family clan/(mafia).

... and yes, since those VIP (or whatever their name is) programs even invite/comp me, they really are downgrading themselves ...

People who don't stay at hiltons very often, won't be competing with us for any upgrades, regarless of what their status is. I earned Hhonors gold last year and was very proud of it. I don't mind that others are gettting it now virtually for silver level stays. I have 250K+ points in only one year, they don't. Plus, IMHO I'm all for anything that might keep up the popularity of the program and cause hilton to keep it around, put more effort into it, expand it, etc..... The more members they have, the more I see this happening. Just a thought....

I wonder if the current economy has anything to do with decisions to comp status on a limited promotions. Generally speaking (for my industry, at least) the fastest buck is made from one's own customer base. Elites make up the hotel industry's customer base - based on past performance, they can project that elites will occupy "X" number of rooms per quarter. If room occupancy is not "on projection", one way to make up for it is to recruit someone else's customer base (elites).
If the Hilton Fast Track to Gold promotion did indeed go out to a targeted audience - elites from other loyalty programs - (and then happily make it's way to FT http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif )that may be what is happening - a reaction to the economy and needing to beef-up room occupancy.

Here in Dallas, commercial For Lease signs are popping up. There have been layoffs (XO, Lucent, etc.), Office Depot has discontinued 1200 SKU's.....there are many signs that business is not wonderful.

Just trying to "look at the problem from 24,000 feet" and see if there is a bigger picture. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

------------------
Don't wait for your ship to come in. Build one.

I guess we could say that the airlines and the hotel programs are caught between a rock and a hard place ?

It seem's they are caught between driving people away (being selective, being exclusionary) and not being out-competed ?

I think some of these tactics are very short sighted. That is, I don't think the insult to long-term, current customers is worth the chance to attract new customers.

Sometimes, this is termed 'stickiness', and true style and class is very sticky - if you feel respected and valued, then you will return !

Wouldn't that be d'illusion? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

(Good one, Punki)

Touche, Counsellor! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

Maybe someday my handsome, illustrious, generous and kind (but soooooooo chauvinistic) big brother will teach me how to make accent marks on an American keyboard.

edited to add sooooooooo for Rudi's sake. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

[This message has been edited by Punki (edited 02-17-2001).]

Hilton monitors these boards regularly, they know exactly what is going on. It is not rare for Airlines/Hotels to "invite" frequent travellers into their programs at an elite level. I for one have received VIP invites in the past and was too lazy to do anything about them. These programs often buy/barter lists with other programs but have no guarantee of success.

We on this board are not "Joe Public". I am sure that Hilton is more than aware of this issue and are quite happy that this code was disseminated here on Flyertalk.

Hilton "party crashers" can only use the Gold upgrades when they check-in. Inactive travelers simply won't be checking in. Therefore, there will be no competition for upgrades.

Active travelers are a different story. These travelers are exactly who Hilton is courting.