Program review: Club ITC

Club ITC is the in-house program run by ITC hotels in India. In addition, they are also part of SPG, but sadly, there is no option to double-dip. Having said that, Club ITC does have some good benefits that one could consider signing up for.

Earnings are in terms of Green Points, for eligible stays at any of the 45 hotels, or eligible spends at the 85 Wills Lifestyle stores that ITC operates. They used to run a program called WelcomAward, but for reasons not known to me, they closed that one a few years back.

Here's a quick look at the program. I should warn you, though, that there are some serious T&Cs.

Admission/membership

Membership is not automatic, in the sense that one can’t simply sign up for it, as is normally the case with most loyalty programs. You have to put in an application, which will be responded to, and ideally speaking, you would need at least one stay at an ITC hotel or spends of at least Rs 7,500 at a participating Wills Lifestyle stores. However, I’m told that normally, the response is favourable, and you’re granted admission into the program, at the Silver tier even if you haven’t met either of those admission criteria.

Benefits

I find the benefits reasonably good. Here they are:

You can also find the benefits listing, here. In particular, I like:

• Earning Green Points on non-stay spends at ITC hotels (eg F&B) – for Gold and Plats only
• 50% off published tariff for suites over weekends – again, may be worth it if you plan to spend nonetheless
• Room upgrades, complimentary internet and late checkout at ITC hotels – Platinum only
• Complimentary monogramming services for Gold and Platinum members
• Green fee waiver at Classic Golf Resort, Gurgaon, on specified weekdays for Plat members
• Eligible spends include banqueting spends!

In addition, there are specific offers for Club ITC members, such as the ongoing one (valid till 31 October 2013), where for 3 stays or spends of Rs 60k at ITC hotels, you can pick one of:

• One night stay complimentary at an ITC hotel
• Rs 4k worth dining privileges
• Rs 4k worth Wills Lifestyle merchandise
• 4,000 JP miles

I’ve said this before and I’ll say this again, JP miles aren’t the best mileage currency around. JP members would have received a promo mail recently on this on the 4k miles promo – just be careful, that if you elect for that, then that’s the only benefit you get. But I know which of the above I’d choose if I could!

Program tiers and qualification

The program has three tiers – Silver, Gold and Platinum. Silver is the entry level, admission to which is by application. I’ve written about this in the previous section. Moving to Gold involves one of:

• 8 stays / 16 nights at ITC hotels
• Rs 25k spent at Wills Lifestyle stores
• Combined spend at ITC Hotels + Wills Lifestyle stores of Rs 100k

Moving to Platinum is a bit tougher:

• 16 stays / 30 nights at ITC hotels
• Rs 50k spent at Wills Lifestyle stores
• Combined spend at ITC Hotels + Wills Lifestyle stores of Rs 250k

All the above qualification criteria need to be met within a 12 month period. It is not clear if a Silver member with say 20 stays will move directly to Platinum – appears not, but I’m fairly certain that writing to the membership office will clear things up.

Rewards

I mentioned above that the program earns Green Points, at the rate of 3%, 4% and 5% of eligible spend value, for Silver, Gold and Platinum tiers respectively. These can be redeemed for a variety of rewards, including:

• 1.25 JP miles for 1 Green Point
• 1.75 Air India FR miles for 1 Green Point
• Hotel stays – variety of options
• Dining vouchers
• Contributions to an NGO at Re 1 = 1 Green Point
• John Players’ apparel certificate at Re 1 = 1 Green Point
• Bose audio products (players, headphones and earphones)
• Vouchers at Re 1 = 1 Green Point, for a variety of ITC products (such as Fiama di Wills, Essenza di Wills, Wills Lifestyle, etc)

I’m not going to list out everything here, but you get the drift.

They also run promotions on redemption options. One of them that’s currently on, is a 1N/2D stay for 2 adults, with breakfast, taxes included, for 3000 Green Points at ITC Rajputana Jaipur, or 4000 Green Points at the ITC Mughal, Agra. Another is a suite upgrade voucher on completion of 5 stays. There’s more information here.

Club ITC v/s SPG - back of the envelope analysis

Since ITC properties are eligible for SPG benefits, lets take a quick look at one of the basic redemption options. For this purpose, I'm looking at the ITC Mughal, Agra, as a redemption option. This requires 5000 Green Points, or Rs 167k of spends. ITC Mugha, Agra is a SPG Category 3 property, which requires 7000 Starpoints to redeem, equated to a spend of around Rs 210k. That's a 26% additional spend requirement. Even at Gold / Platinum levels (equated), there is an additional spend requirement in SPG over Club ITC, though it is only around 12%. Also, Club ITC has promotions like the one I described above, for 3 stays (which earns one free night). Clearly, Club ITC seems more beneficial on an as is basis.

But there are no earning promotions, unlike SPG. So, if you consider say the Take Two promotion, it may well be possible to earn the needed 7000 Starpoints without having to spend the Club ITC requirement level of Rs 167k. Also remember, that there are other redemption options within both SPG and Club ITC - I haven't gone into a detailed analysis of those, so YMMV.

Conclusion

Overall, this is a reasonably good program if you have multiple short stays and/or if your travels and redemption options are within India. If you want to go global or prefer your SPG, though, this may not be all that useful to you. But on balance, I think this is a fairly good program with decent benefits.