Kimpton took the lid off of their new program. Most of the inner circle benefits remain intact. Earning is identical. Requal is only 14 stays/40 nights. Did notice a change for upgrades. Lower tiers now get them a certain number of times per year to the next room category. It's not mentioned if inner circle guests should still expect upgrades to the best suite in the house, based on check in availability, which I've consistently gotten.

Will be testing out the greater award availability for inner circle today. Very happy about that change!

If you read the faqs there is a response about the upgrade benefit. It says upgrade to at least next category and it excludes suites.

Kimpton rep, please clarify if IC members can still expect upgrades to the best available room including suites.

Thanks

The new website is incredibly slick! I love it.

In terms of the biggest changes that I see for IC members:

1. Suites are specifically excluded in the room upgrade, which would be a massive devaluation, if true. This alone would probably kill the program from my perspective, although I somehow doubt that they would gut the suite upgrades, which were the #1 competitive advantage of pre-Karma IC (dare we call it pre-K vs. post-K for pre v. post Karma?)
2. Inner Circle requalification drops to 14 stays, but increases to 40 nights
3. the Welcome Amenity T&C is changed slightly, removing the reference to 'two' and sticking with the simpler 'favorite snack and beverage.' Unclear if this is status quo, or an improvement, or a devaluation
4. Late check-out priority is written into the benefits. This was never a problem for me before, but nice to see it there.
5. GREATER REWARD AVAILABILITY!!!! HALLELUJAH!!! This would be huge. I'm interested in what it means.
6. VIP restaurant reservations. This is useful to me, as I've frequently had mix-ups on the Chef's Treat through the normal channels.

Net-net, I think the two important questions are: has the unwritten policy of best room (regular suites included; speciality suites typically excluded) upgrade changed? How does increased award night availability work?

I'll be in Dallas later this month. Planning to stay at the Fairmont, but I could switch to one of the Kimpton properties. I'll keep an eye out for early reports to see how IC members are reporting the immediate changes (if any).

Hi Everyone,

We're so excited to finally introduce our new Kimpton Karma Rewards program. It's been a long time in the making, with lots of thought as to how to thank, and reward, our most loyal members. Everything you love is still there, but with richer benefits as you move through the tiers.

As far as upgrades go, we'll do our best to put you in a suite if it's available upon check in. That's always been our policy and we haven't changed that - we simply clarified in our T&Cs that it's not a guarantee (never has been) and is based on the discretion of the hotels. But chances are, you'll still be kicking back in an awesome room whenever you're with us.

In the meantime, don't forget to check out our new look and feel at kimptonhotels.com, and let us know if you have any further questions.

Thanks!

Didn't that always exist? It certainly used to be advertised (although maybe it went away in the interim).

These two FAQs seem to contradict each other:

Other changes:

I thought morning newspapers used to be for all InTouch members, but now they're IC-only.

Late checkout is now a probable (but not guaranteed) benefit.

There are now (mysterious, undocumented) ways of getting more karma (which I assume means more stay/night credits, but not sure) when we "engage with" Kimpton.

IC upgrades now explicitly exclude suites. Not sure if/why that would be enforced.

I no longer see a way to track my progress towards Passport (now called Journey) rewards. Does anyone see one?

The old website used to list reservations associated with free night rewards. The new one doesn't, so I can't tell which ones are already committed and which are not. Annoying.

General comment: I sort of hoped the tiers would have names more fun than Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3

Hard to see why Kimpton would want to give people more incentive to hotel-hop on longer stays...

Agreed.

Hi SJC,

Thanks for your post. Due to a few small glitches, some tracking may not be displaying at the moment. Please know that we’re working on this and that there is no problem with data integrity. All of your info is safe and sound so if you have any questions feel free to call our Karma Advisors at 888-695-4678.

And please note – suites were never guaranteed, but often given if available. That hasn’t changed!

Thanks for the info. You might be better off saying something in the T&C like "Room upgrades are to the next available room class. Suite upgrades are subject to availability and not guaranteed." -- that would avoid confusion, since the current wording sure sounds like suite upgrades are impossible.

Are you working on tracking Journey progress too? That seems to be missing from the new site.

Thank you for not moving the goalposts, Kimpton. I'm excited to remain an IC-level member and will continue pursuing status (see you in SF next month at the Palomar). The new website is a huge improvement over the old. And a big thanks to KimptonInTouch (Susan) for her level of engagement here on FT.

Does this go for logging in as well? Since the change the system no longer lets me log in. I haven't had any stays yet but did have something booked for the end of this month. My user name and password no longer work, and even trying to reset my password results in an error message: "The specified email address is not associated with an account, please try again."

Many thanks to KimptonInTouch for the engagement!

Given the improvement to award availability (I hope), I'm inclined to try to get myself back in motion to requalify for 2015 status.

The change that I'm most excited about is the new website. The old one was an absolute nightmare on Chrome for me, and the new one looks (and feels) great. There are some kinks that I see need to be worked out, but it is a huge improvement.

A nice NYT blog post, with some more details about rewards for interaction:
http://intransit.blogs.nytimes.com/2...long-you-stay/

Does interacting with Kimpton on FlyerTalk count?

Looking forward to finally checking out Kimpton later this year at the Firesky Resort. The website looks great indeed!

I like red wine, no Skittles #hint