Sunday, January 8, 2012

AirMiles and Priority Club Devalue Their Programs

InterContinental Hotels Group's Priority Club Rewards program was the first hotel loyalty program I joined. That was about eight years ago, during a stay at a Holiday Inn in Montréal. Seeing that handful of points in my account made me wonder how I could earn enough for a free night, and that was the beginning of this little obsession of mine.

Like any loyalty program, Priority Club certainly has its flaws, but it also has two major strengths. The first is that with over 4,500 properties worldwide, including Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza, and Hotel Indigo, there is almost always a hotel where you want to stay, whether to earn or redeem points. The second is that, in addition to the ten points earned per dollar spent on stays, bonus points are insanely easy to get.

In fact, there are several websites that list bonus codes: Priority Club Insider, this section of Rewards Canada, and this thread on flyertalk. The best strategy to follow is to register for as many bonuses as you think you might qualify for prior to your stay. You probably won't get them all, but you're likely to get some.

What this means is that a $150 stay at a Holiday Inn, instead of yielding 1,500 points, could earn 5-10K points. There's even a MasterCard available from Capital One that let's you earn Priority Club points for all your credit card spending.

But the bad news is that, effective January 18, Priority Club is increasing the number of points required to redeem for a free night. For example, previously, most Holiday Inns were 15K points; some will now cost 5-10K points more. Not all properties are going up; some are actually decreasing, but the increase amounts to a 40% jump in many cases, and that seriously devalues both the program and the credit card.

Which brings me to AirMiles.

I'm not a collector of AirMiles. Because there are few participating merchants where I live, there just isn't significant earning opportunity for me. In addition, miles are expensive to earn and have little value. I've also had difficulties with its customer service centre in the past. Recently, AirMiles announced it would confiscate members' unused points five years after they've been earned (you can read what I think about such policies here). There are other changes to the program that are explained here.

Basically, these changes highlight an essential truth about loyalty programs, especially free-standing ones like Aeroplan and AirMiles: they are loyal to their shareholders and merchant partners, not their members.

And that raises another truth: just because a points program and/or its credit card was right for you in the past, doesn't mean it is still the best program/card for you today. Programs change, and so do your spending patterns, so you need to monitor them both and be prepared to change if necessary.

Follow me on Twitter: @AeneasLane

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