What is your favourite hotel loyalty program, and why?

[Flashback]

I don't use hotel loyalty programs, or rather don't seek them out. I book BFOD and book the room type I'd be happy to end up in.

The constant angst or whether a chain hotel will provide the benefits it should or not is now gone.

Where a chain hotel works better, then I will of course book and credit to the program, unless a price booked elsewhere works out better.

I do sometimes buy points and use those to redeem a room, where doing so is more economical. This has worked very well in the Scandi region.

Some recent stays with matched status to Radisson and Choice Hotels gave me a good reminder of why the hotel loyalty game is fruitless. Radisson ensures an upgrade for VIP status to any room type (not just next level) and failed to provide basically any of the benefits. Customer services replied saying "so what? It's is the hotel's discretion". Choice Hotels, were actually good in providing the bennies, but I had to query/prompt each time. I think that's more an issue between 2 loyalty programs applying in the Nordics though (Choice Hotels vs Strawberry).

It all comes back to ....... you never know if your benefits will be applied and if you then call them out on it and they don't, it provides anger (for me at least). Hence, for me, my favourite hotel loyalty program is still whoever (chain or not, more often not) provides the cheapest room at the level of amenities/comfort we require in the location we require. That way, any additional benefits, upgrades (happens a lot at non chain, too) is just a nice surprise.

 

[cove]

We have two more Kris Miles runs and we enjoy them.
Had QF switch me to a junker 737 out of the booked A330 which was very disappointing.
We stay at the Crowne Plaza at Changi so IHG is a favourite program.