I am little late to the game with this post if you follow some of the U.S. based frequent flyer blogs but I also wanted to wait for more details from my contacts at IHG. Some of those details I cannot release yet and have not been made aware of but they assured me that Priority Club has a strong focus on guest experience and will be implementing initiatives to ensure they continue to set the standard for loyalty programs. What I can cover is the same as what other blogs have covered to this point, the changes in the number of Priority Club points required to redeem for a free night reward stay. Essentially what has happened is that Priority has added additional reward point levels for all of their brands with all of the new levels being higher than existing ones save for tHoliday Inn/Holiday Inn Express where the addition is between the previous mid and high levels.
The reward night requirements are as follows:
Candlewood Suites
Old: 15,000
New: 15,000 or 20,000
Crowne Plaza
Old: 25,000
New: 25,000 or 35,000
Hotel Indigo
Old: 25,000
New: 25,000 or 35,000
Holiday Inn/Holiday Inn Express
Old: 10,000 or 15,000 or 25,000
New: 10,000 or 15,000 or 20,000 or 25,000.
InterContinental
Old: 30,000 or 40,000
New: 30,000 or 40,000 or 50,000.
Staybridge Suites
Old: 20,000
New: 20,000 or 25,000
Here are some more details on these changes that begin on January 18th:
- PCR members will need more points to redeem a Reward Night stay in roughly 25% of our IHG hotels around the world
- 20% of our hotels PCR members will actually need less points to claim a Reward Night
- 55% of IHG hotels, Reward Night values won’t change at all
- PCR members with existing bookings will be honored at the Reward Night rate that they were booked for
- PCR members have until 18th March to benefit from the old Reward Nights rates for new bookings too. All they need to do is call the PCR Service Centre and ask for the previous rate.
This is really an unfortunate change as the 25% of hotels that are increasing will more than likely be the high end/much desired locations such as the IC Bora Bora, although we can only confirm this on the 18th when the new rates are loaded into IHG's system.
It can also be seen somewhat of a devaluation for those Canadians who have gotten themselves a Priority Club MasterCard from Capital One (which only launched in November). They will now be required to earn more points for those certain locations that are being increased.
Overall I believe the program still offers some great value for Canadians as they have their Point Breaks option where select hotels Worldwide can be booked for only 5,000 Priority Club points often including some of the high end InterContinental Hotels plus Priority Club doles out so many bonus offers for points that it is one of the easiest hotel programs to earn points in. It is not unheard of to earn 20,000 to 30,000 points for one hotel stay as long as that PCR member remembered to register for all the possible bonuses. To see a complete list of bonus offers please see Rewards Canada's
Priority Club Bonus Point Opportunities.
For more details on PCR's Reward nights please visit this
page
Feel free to add your two cents to these changes by commenting below
La Quinta's fast track to Gold Status offer that was around for most of 2011 has been extended for all of 2012. The offer lets new La Quinta Returns members earn Gold Status within the program after completing only 2 stays within 60 days of enrollment. This offer is not too bad for those Canadians who travel a lot to the Southern U.S. and Mexico where La Quinta has most of their properties, in Canada La Quinta only has one location near the Vancouver airport.