Accor Plus Worth It?

sudoer

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Towards the end of this year and certainly next year I'll be travelling more for conferences and what not, particularly in North America and Europe where Accor doesn't have much of a presence nor do the hotels in those regions participate in such a program.

Accor, being a French company, has a huge presence throughout Europe.

I can certainly see value in the free night offered to members so that easily takes $110 off the sign up cost but wonder how much of a savings I'd expect to find with red hot deals and the 10% guaranteed discount they claim.

You should be able to extract quite a bit more value than $110. I've got a Stay Plus night booked at SO Singapore this week worth roughly $250. Red Hot Deals can provide very good value (at least in Australia and Asia - I haven't booked any in Europe) and the availability is usually pretty good. If you're going to a city which is serviced by 5+ Accor properties, chances are at least one of them will have a decent deal.

I suppose the other wild card for me is the dining discount. I haven't seen what in hotel restaurant dining is like at Accor properties in Australia but if that 25% discount applies, that may represent better value than the Hungry Jacks or Macca's combo I normally get when travelling domestically!

The quality of hotel dining varies quite a bit, if you're planning to dine in it's worth researching in advance. The restaurant menus are usually available online. Also just calling out that this benefit is only applicable in APAC.

Another benefit which doesn't get talked about much is the Member for a Day vouchers. You get three each year and can either give them to friends & family for their own stays, or take 8 friends out for a half-price dinner.
 
You should be able to extract quite a bit more value than $110. I've got a Stay Plus night booked at SO Singapore this week worth roughly $250. Red Hot Deals can provide very good value (at least in Australia and Asia - I haven't booked any in Europe) and the availability is usually pretty good. If you're going to a city which is serviced by 5+ Accor properties, chances are at least one of them will have a decent deal.

Yeah generally with these "free" hotel offers I receive from credit cards, I try to find an expensive hotel and book that for just the night. For instance, in 2018 I booked the AC Hotel Time Square in New York on NYE to see the ball drop. Rack rate was $1,000 USD/night which makes the $129 annual fee on my Bonvoy card worth it!

As for the dining, I guess I'll take a look at the hotels I've got booked in the coming months to see what the menus look like and whether that discount is worth (and whether they're on the exception list). As for the dining credit, does one need to have a night booked at the hotel to use that benefit or can they use it at a hotel restaurant anytime?

Thanks for the heads up on the member a day voucher which could be useful, particularly if I have relatives visiting from time to time now that the borders have reopened.

One question I forgot to ask is whether one earns elite stay nights, points (Accor and QF) are earned when booking a red hot deal or other such discounted stay with Accor Plus? At this point I doubt I'll ever get above Gold status given how diversified I am on hotel stays but would be nice to know.

-RooFlyer88
 
One question I forgot to ask is whether one earns elite stay nights, points (Accor and QF) are earned when booking a red hot deal or other such discounted stay with Accor Plus? At this point I doubt I'll ever get above Gold status given how diversified I am on hotel stays but would be nice to know.

Yep, you earn full points & status nights on the discounted rates. I believe you also earn status nights for the Stay Plus night benefit as long as you charge something to the room or use it as part of a multi-night stay.
 
....As for the dining, I guess I'll take a look at the hotels I've got booked in the coming months to see what the menus look like and whether that discount is worth (and whether they're on the exception list). As for the dining credit, does one need to have a night booked at the hotel to use that benefit or can they use it at a hotel restaurant anytime?.

-RooFlyer88
The dining credit can be used whether you are staying or not. Frequently use it locally at Manly Novotel and have had good meals at Sofitel Darling Harbour and Cairns Pullman Reef amongst others
 
The dining credit can be used whether you are staying or not. Frequently use it locally at Manly Novotel and have had good meals at Sofitel Darling Harbour and Cairns Pullman Reef amongst others

Yep, if in Sydney, Tayim at the Harbour Rocks Hotel and Bacar at Pullman Olympic Park are also pretty good options.
 
I received an eMail from QBR:
SYD, enjoy up to 50% off hotel stays on your next business trip

Basically in invite to sign up for an Accor Plus Business Explorer membership:

For just $399 a year you'll enjoy:
1. A complimentary hotel night;
2. Up to 50% off rooms and dining;
3. An exclusive 10% off the best available room; and more.

This is across all participating Accor hotels and resorts like Sofitel, MGallery, Pullman, Swissotel, Novotel and Mercure.

And right now, you'll earn 10,000 Qantas Points when you join by 31 July 2022.


Is this the same as regular Accor Plus or different?

I already got myself (my company) enrolled in the SME Business Program (fee free but you need to get enough nights in per year across all employees to maintain the discounts):

Not sure if I can double dip?
 
I received an eMail from QBR:
SYD, enjoy up to 50% off hotel stays on your next business trip

Basically in invite to sign up for an Accor Plus Business Explorer membership:

For just $399 a year you'll enjoy:
1. A complimentary hotel night;
2. Up to 50% off rooms and dining;
3. An exclusive 10% off the best available room; and more.

This is across all participating Accor hotels and resorts like Sofitel, MGallery, Pullman, Swissotel, Novotel and Mercure.

And right now, you'll earn 10,000 Qantas Points when you join by 31 July 2022.


Is this the same as regular Accor Plus or different?

I already got myself (my company) enrolled in the SME Business Program (fee free but you need to get enough nights in per year across all employees to maintain the discounts):

Not sure if I can double dip?
My latest QBR email is now saying that I’d get comp Accor Gold (normally Sliver) if I sign up for Accor+ Business Explored. That’s in addition to 10,000 pts and listed benefits.

I‘m already Gold but only until the end of the year (thanks to ongoing covid extensions) but then I was going to buy Ibis Business for €90 that always comes with Accor Gold.

So what do we think? Good value? I guess I can expense the annual fee as an added enticement.
 
You can also join Accor plus via another country and you'll get the same perks.
1 night free and upto 50% off meals

Fiji is a common one, effective price is around AU$205/yr
 
You can also join Accor plus via another country and you'll get the same perks.
1 night free and upto 50% off meals

Fiji is a common one, effective price is around AU$205/yr
Don't you need to have a mailing address in that country?
 
Another way to get Accor Plus for free I've discovered is the AmEx Platinum card. Sure the annual fee is a little pricey at $1,450/year but you get a ton of statement credits for travel and dining to say nothing of the lounge access and international airline program that offers 5-10% discount on a Premium Economy, Business or First class fare.

-RooFlyer88
 
@sudoer I have had Accor Plus for many years and I had no idea about the member for a day voucher, I always thought it was just to get a members rate , but didn't know it included the dining. Thanks for the information!
 
@sudoer I have had Accor Plus for many years and I had no idea about the member for a day voucher, I always thought it was just to get a members rate , but didn't know it included the dining. Thanks for the information!
We used the member for a day vouchers during our stay at the Novotel Cairns Oasis, staff had no idea how it worked and we had to explain each time we ordered food.
 
Just reading this thread again and I'm a bit confused. Does the discount for dining only apply in certain countries? Does it make any difference if I joined from Europe?
 
Just reading this thread again and I'm a bit confused. Does the discount for dining only apply in certain countries? Does it make any difference if I joined from Europe?
TThere are different schemes in different countries and the restaurant and other discounts are only for the Australian Accor Plus AFAIK.
 
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TThere are different schemes in different countries and the restaurant and other discounts are only for the Australian Accor Plus AFAIK.
Just to elaborate on this point since I believe it deserves further nuance: Accor provides a number of discounts to members of its various programs depending on the context of the booking. In particular, Accor offers a blanket 10% discount on hotel bookings for ALL members booking hotels outside Asia Pacific. For Asia Pacific specifically there is a PLUS program that provides discounts to members which vary in amount but are typically at least 10% less than the rates available to the public, often much more than that especially if the hotel is a red hot deal (there are often promos for joining PLUS, see here). They also have a vacation club program that offers a 10% discount in the region to a number of Accor properties. If that wasn't enough they have two more discount cards which so far I can tell apply globally: the business Plus card which costs 170 EUR per year and provides a 20% discount on many Accor properties, late check out to 4 PM. In addition, there is the ibis business card which applies primarily to ibis properties and cost 70 EUR per year and provides Gold level recognition when staying at those properties.

No doubt I've probably missed some other club or program out there, but these are the ones I've found in the past couple of months of stays at Accor hotels.

-RooFlyer88
 
I am an Accor Plus member by virtue of a friend's gifted membership. As an existing AP member she was able to take advantage of an offer which cost $79 (from memory) to purchase an AP membership and gift it to someone else. This membership doesn't include the free night and I am sure it said in the fine print that it doesn't include experiences (but I get emailed those still so I would be interested what'd happen if I tried to buy one - never been my cup of tea) but otherwise is the same as the full $399 version. To me this represents much much better value than the higher priced "full" membership so if you are able to wait till December to see if they offer it again do take advantage of that membership option.
 
This membership doesn't include the free night and I am sure it said in the fine print that it doesn't include experiences (but I get emailed those still so I would be interested what'd happen if I tried to buy one - never been my cup of tea) but otherwise is the same as the full $399 version. To me this represents much much better value than the higher priced "full" membership
Like most loyalty things, the value you get out of it is directly related to how frequently you use it and the value you can extract from individual redemptions. For me spending $400 on Accor+ with that free night is a bargain for the free night alone as I've used it to stay at the Sofitel Sydney which regularly costs more than $400. Additionally, having booked the better part of 60 nights (most of which were on an Accor+ rate), the savings there was considerable as well. In some instances I got hotels in the CBDs of Darwin, Perth and Sydney for ~$100/night with free breakfast (as a Platinum). If we exclude the free night for just a moment and simply calculate the cost savings I would need to have for each night stay to "break even," that would work out to roughly $6.67/night which from my experience I have more than easily got.

if you are able to wait till December to see if they offer it again do take advantage of that membership option.
Does Accor run a promotion in December where they offer the base Accor+ for $79?
 

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