Hyatt joins Marriott, Starwood and Hilton to offer member-only discounted rates

Hotel chains are doing all they can to ensure that bookings traffic comes to them directly as far as possible. And they've been using multiple approaches - including both carrots and sticks, if you'll pardon the cliche - to make sure that bookings are not diverted through third parties.

In that context (and there's more, so read on), Hyatt today joined Marriott, Starwood and Hilton, to offer discounted rates that are available only for members of their loyalty program. And since we've not written about any of those in detail, we've summarised each program's offering in this post.

Hyatt announced today, the launch of an exclusive discount for Hyatt Gold Passport members, rewarding loyal guests with an up-to-10-percent discount for bookings made through Hyatt.com or the Hyatt mobile app. They will be offered at hotels in the US, Canada and Australia, though the such discounts and the percentage of discount will be determined by each hotel.

According to Hyatt,

The Hyatt Gold Passport member discount joins a suite of benefits enjoyed by travelers who book direct, including:

• Best value: Hyatt.com has long offered the lowest prices. With Hyatt’s Best Rate Guarantee, if a guest finds a qualifying lower rate published on another site within 24 hours of booking, Hyatt will match it and discount it by 20 percent for the entire stay. See Hyatt.com for more details.
• Loyalty program benefits: Hyatt Gold Passport members who make direct bookings can earn loyalty points and credit toward elite tier status, which provides members additional benefits such as free premium Wi-Fi and complimentary suite upgrades.
• On-the-go access and support: Hyatt.com and the mobile app make it easy to manage reservations on-the-go, including reservation changes without surprise fees and around-the-clock support by phone or the social channels travelers prefer.
• Personalized experiences: Not only can travelers select the right room type and amenities that fit their needs when they book direct, but Hyatt can also better get to know guests and tailor experiences accordingly.

Plus, later this year, the enhanced Hyatt mobile app will provide guests who book direct the ability to make on-demand requests by communicating instantly with Hyatt on services like Messenger or text messaging.

In February 2016, Hilton launched Stop clicking around, an ad campaign targeted at getting hotel customers to book directly with them, offering not-found-elsewhere prices, along with free wi-fi (which has become pretty standard now, I guess).

To quote from their press release:

Last year, 57 billion Hilton HHonors Points – or more than 1.6 million free nights – went unearned because guests booked their stay through a third party,” said Mark Weinstein, global head of Customer Engagement, Loyalty and Partnerships at Hilton Worldwide. “There is a huge misconception that third parties always offer lower prices for our hotel rooms, which is simply not true.

More than 1.6 million room nights went unearned? That's a travesty, according to me!

Starwood also offers Member Exclusive Rates - rates for members at up to 10% below the lowest available rates, at select hotels.

And in March 2016, Marriott announced It pays to book direct, their own version of the book-direct brigade's promotion, which offers Marriott Rewards Member Rates, a new rate exclusively designed to reward loyalty members who book directly on Marriott.com, our easy-to-use app, call centers or through select corporate travel professionals to automatically receive benefits.

From the press release,

We’re rewarding our loyal members by providing a rate exclusively designed to show them how valuable they are to us,” said Karin Timpone, Global Marketing Officer, Marriott International. “We also want to help dispel the myth that other travel websites offer better rates for our hotels. The simple fact is that you will find the lowest rates across our portfolio when you join Marriott Rewards and book direct.

IHG is right now the only major loyalty chain (that I follow) which doesn't have a members-exclusive rate. However, several of their promotions include a rate that is supposedly discounted by up to 35%, which is available exclusively for members. Typically, these rates are available for booking up at least a week in advance, as is the case with their Accelerate 2016 promotion.

Conclusion

I think it is great that hotels recognise and reward loyalty this way, ie, through better pricing. So I only welcome this trend. Having said that, pricing need not be the only way to reward your best and returning customers. We'll take a look at that in another post.

Readers: What matters more to you? Pricing (which you can get from third parties too) or the benefits and recognition you get as a loyalty program member?