Are Hotel Loyalty Programs Still Worth It?

Hotel Loyalty Programs are playing a dumb game, that’s what our friend from Godsavethepoints posted already last year.

Hyatt just announced new, higher award pricing for several of its best hotels, the whole post can be found here at Viewfromthewing.

Most Hotel loyalty programs have devalued their programs to inexplicable levels. From our last experiences, we were wondering if Hotel loyalty programs are still worth it?

We’ve made a comparison with Hotels.com with some Hotel loyalty programs and their mid-tier statuses. With hotel loyalty programs, you usually get more points when you have a higher status, but what more can you expect?

Marriott Bonvoy

Our last stay was only days ago at Sheraton Cascais, in Portugal. It’s a nice place, and we have been here years ago already.

As a Marriott Bonvoy Gold member, all we’ve got was one voucher for two welcome drinks, no room upgrade or other perks. It was off season, so there would have been plenty of possibilities for an upgrade.

This happened to us already last year at other Marriott Bonvoy hotels.

If we had booked the same room via Hotels.com (we’ve checked this before, it was the same price) we would have gotten a free night after 10 nights paid.

For future reservation, we won’t care about their loyalty program anymore, and we will book with hotels.com

Hilton

Last year, we have visited few Hilton Hotels, as a Gold member. For each stay we’ve got a room upgrade, and for each stay (they were all in Europe) we’ve got FREE breakfast.

If we had chosen hotels.com, we would have never gotten a room upgrade or free breakfast. 1 free night after 10 stays is still not bad, but we will still stay with Hilton and their loyalty program in the future, as these benefits are in our opinion worth it.

Radisson

Unfortunately, we’ve stayed only at one Radisson hotel last year, as a Gold member.

The stay was during the season and the hotel was pretty full. A room upgrade wasn’t possible, but we didn’t have to pay the parking fee (20€), and we’ve got an in-room welcome gift (chocolate cakes).

At that time, we also got free breakfast, but it seems that breakfast in Europe isn’t for free anymore for Gold members now.

For future reservations, we are not sure if we will book through Hotels.com or Radisson. No free breakfast anymore is a huge drawback.

Melia

We had two stays as a MeliaRewards Gold member as well.

The only thing that were offered, was free breakfast for your companion. This is a pretty dumb perk, it only applies to reservations with accommodation rate only. Because no one ever stays alone in a hotel??

The guaranteed late checkout was not honored correctly, and we did not receive any points at all. We tried to contact Melia several times to receive our points, but the issue has not been resolved. Room upgrades are only available for Platinum members.

In the future, we will book through hotels.com instead of the Melia Rewards program.

Hyatt

We love Hyatt, we’ve had many nice stays over the last years at Hyatt Hotels. As most Hyatt Hotels are in the US, and we haven’t been there for 2 years due to Covid-19, we can’t judge if their loyalty program is still worth it.