A few days ago Loews hotel group introduced the tweet yourself to Loews Hotels where you make a reservation with a tweet and their social media consultants will tweet back and help you out. You must include the hashtag #BookLoews.
What do you think about this new hotel social reservation system? I’m really excited about this trend because it is making hotel reservation easy and fast. This may potentially allow other brands to see the tweet and offer a more competitive rate at a better hotel. Time will only tell if this new system works or which hotel brands will follow suit.
A year ago while cruising in the Southern Caribbean we met a couple at Norwegian Sun’s VIP lounge. We asked how many times they have been cruising and their answers led to the understanding of brand loyalty. How brand loyalty had gotten them upgrades, perks and free cruises too.
After that talk, I began to realize how I’ve missed out. We’ve stayed in Hilton’s Hampton Inn, Holiday Inn, Marriott’s Spring Hill Suite and La Quinta on many road trips and some international travels.
The only rewards points I have registered so far is with the Marriott group. The only reason I had it was because the hotel reception offered and made it easy for me to join. I didn’t pay much attention to the advantages of the rewards points and most of the time I did not even bother to give the rewards number when making a reservation.
Now I am playing catch up. Our recent stay at the JW Marriott Quito had opened my eyes to the importance of staying loyal to a brand. First off we paid with our rewards points for one night out of the two nights stay.
Did you know that sales tax and service charge is waived when you use the rewards points? In Quito the 12% sales tax and 10% service fee for one night were waived. That is a huge saving for a room over $300.
When we returned to the United States we stayed five nights with the Marriott group while on our road trip from Florida to New York. That means I only need another two nights stay with the Marriott group before the next free night.
According to Hotel News Now, hotel loyalty programs are stable of hotel brand marketing for the last 30 years. The report quoted VP of Marriott Rewards at Marriott International, Bob Behrens saying “it gets customers to choose you beyond the rationale of price and location because they have an emotional affinity to your brands and will go out of their way to consistently stay with you.” (Source: Hotel News Now)
You can read more about “The history and evolution of hotel loyalty” on Hotel News Now’s website.
I realized another plus was to apply for the hotel’s credit card and get bonus points for signing up and using the card.
Are you loyal to one hotel brand? If so which one?
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