The Ritz Carlton Now Offers Luxury Hotel Rewards
Free internet, complimentary in-room snacks, free parking, loyalty points – for any frequent traveler, you’ll recognize that these are things most often offered by mid-range hotel chains. Ironically, in spite of higher room prices, luxury hotels rarely offer any perks to their well-heeled patrons. Want to check your emails? $10-20/day, on average. Hungry? Help yourself to the minibar, but grab a glass of water for when you realize that tiny can of Coke and bag of chips set you back $10.00. And points? Forget it.
The Ritz-Carlton Los Angeles
For years, luxury hotel chains have been hesitant to offer perks to frequent guests, preferring to operate on the premise that those who stay in 4 or 5 star hotels are more concerned with service than special promotions like loyalty points. Ritz-Carlton’s recently introduced rewards program changes that. Each dollar you spend on your room will now earn guests 10 points or 2 airline miles. Stays at full service Mariott locations also earns the same number of points, while stays at Residence Inn or TownePlace properties (lower level Mariott hotel chains) will earn 5 points or 1 airline mile per dollar.
HotelChatter did a comparison against other hotel point programs and found that the points and tiers are competitive with other hotel chains like Hilton and Starwood.
While it may not seem groundbreaking, competitors like the Four Seasons, and many boutique luxury hotels, don’t offer frequent guests anything beyond the normal standard of service. Perhaps the rough economy was enough to make Ritz-Carlton realize that everyone likes getting a bit more for their money. 13 of the 73 Ritz-Carlton hotels have decided not to participate in the program – perhaps still afraid that it’s not classy enough. {HotelChatter}
It’s a first step though, and one that will hopefully be copied by other hotel chains.
