Hotel Loyalty Programs
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Hotel Loyalty points, is mostly an ignored category of loyalty as most of us dont travel too much. Even if they do, they stay in different hotels, so points accrued on one program remain largely unused and ignored. I too hardly used it during my job which forced me to travel a lot, only lately I realised that it is a powerful tool if you use it wisely. You can even stay free nights and get free upgrades which gives a feel good factor when you travel. There are several hotel chains which offer you loyalty points, SPG,Hyatt,ClubCarlson, Marriott, ITC, Taj Epicure are a few.
Most of the international chains have a very structured program where a frequent resident can upgrade between tiers and get additional privileges. So staying at one hotel chain pays well. I know of friends who have redeemed free stays in Paris and Milan and enjoyed a kind of all expenses paid stay in the city of their dreams.
So what do we do to get those free stays, well firstly you have to stay more. Unless your job pushes you to travel a lot, you would be staying in hotels once in a while, so if thats the case join the membership of a large chain of hotels which you like and try and stay in their properties whenever you travel out of your city. This will ensure that you remain active in the loyalty program and keep on accruing points.
Secondly keep an eye on the emails the hotel sends you, sometimes the emails give you those little details of special offers and point collecting avenues which are pretty easy and can easily fatten your points wallet.
Thirdly, if you can then take a credit card which provides you the option to convert your reward points into hotel loyalty points. Citibank Premier Miles, Citibank Prestige and Diners Club International are a few premium cards which offer you the facility to transfer your points to various hotel loyalty programs. So once you have some points with you in the wallet, you can transfer some from the card to redeem it for a free night stay given that the points you are spending are less in monetary terms than actual money you may have to spend for a night at that hotel.
Moreover, most of these chains run promotions from time to time and give away bonus points, give free points or give you extra points to redeem or buy the points you may need. We will share many such promotions in the near future with you to keep you updated on that front. So go ahead and join a program and dont forget to mention your membership number the next time you check in. Happy Holidaying.
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