Hilton HHonors has a Stay Challenge promotion for 100,000 bonus points for 2-night stays at all of their ten hotel brands between December 6, 2013 and May 31, 2014. There is a webpage with all the promotion details.

    •  Earn 4,000 Bonus Points when you stay at any one of our 10 brands.
    •  Earn 6,000 Bonus Points when you stay at a second brand
.    •  For every stay after that at a different hotel brand, you’ll earn 10,000 Bonus Points per stay.
    •  Stay at all 10 brands and you’ll earn an extra 10,000 Bonus Points, for a total of 100,000 Bonus Points.

This is a Targeted Offer and you must have received the email to register for this 100,000 bonus points HHonors promotion.

This exclusive offer is open only to the HHonors member who received the email from Hilton HHonors™ announcing this promotion.

HHonors 100,000 Bonus Points T&C

Loyalty Lobby wrote about this offer on December 7, 2014.

Hilton HHonors “Multi-Brand Stay Challenge” Promotion: Get Up To 100,000 Bonus Points (Targeted).

The following day on December 8, Loyalty Lobby published this follow-up: Hilton HHonors Supervisor Rant About LoyaltyLobby’s Publication Of Targeted Offers.

John Ollila, founder of Loyalty Lobby, published the email response, presumably from an HHonors supervisor, complaining that loyalty members trying to sign up for targeted promotions are one of the most frustrating aspects of her job when customers abuse the HHonors representatives who tell them they are ineligible for an offer.

Targeted Promotions will likely be more common in 2014 and beyond

Part of my blogger work experience is the opportunity to attend hotel industry conferences. I also read hotel industry research to keep up on trends and forecasts.

One of the clear messages I have seen the past few years coming out of hotel industry research papers from consultants and educational institutions like Cornell University’s Center for Hospitality Research is the advice that hotel loyalty programs need to analyze travel patterns and data mine their information from loyalty member profiles and travel patterns to target the high revenue customers with incentives rather than offering high value loyalty promotions to the general membership.

From 2008 to 2010 the hotel industry was trying to climb out of the recession trough. Hotel loyalty promotions were high value and welcoming to all members. The fact that it has taken this long to ramp up the shift to targeted promotions is the welcome surprise for me.

Please understand me. I do not like the trend toward targeted promotions. I am actually disappointed that hotel promotion offers have been steadily less valuable across the loyalty industry over the past two years.

But, I expected this change. I have followed the industry thought leaders columns and reports. I have heard these discussions repeatedly at hotel industry conferences calling for loyalty program managers to use all that data compiled on travelers and focus on incentivizing the high revenue customers and clearing out the customers like you and me that wring the value out of loyalty programs while leaving behind too few dollars.

Will the Hotel Industry Follow the Airline Industry in Qualifying Elites?

The airline industry has taken the lead on this front of weeding out the low revenue frequent flyers.

Gary Leff wrote this piece yesterday:

Why the Era of Mileage Running is Over

Delta and United have added minimum spend requirements to earn top elite status in 2014.

Ten years ago, I was one of those people who typically earned United Mileage Plus 1K for under $3,000 per year. In 2014 the minimum spend required to earn Mileage Plus 1K is $10,000. That is 2x to 3x more than I ever spent to earn 1K during the years I flew 100,000 miles per year as a 1K with United.

Spend requirement for Delta SkyMiles Diamond is $12,500 and 125,000 MQMs.

Last January I attended the Americas Lodging Investment Summit where I picked up a report from Deloitte: A Restoration in Hotel Loyalty: Developing a blueprint for reinventing loyalty programs.

This is one of the pieces of research suggesting hotel loyalty programs target promotions to incentivize hotel stays from the most profitable guests and weed out people like me who play the loyalty game for a high rate of return.

Redefining loyalty

Redefining loyalty programs is likely geared for limiting the advantages and benefits received by savvy frequent travelers like me and most of you reading this blog.

Hotels these days don’t want you to just ‘like’ them. Hotel brands want you to display emotional commitment with an online presence beyond the hotel walls that spreads brand ‘love’ across social media to family, friends, and the masses. I tend to see that in plenty of travel blogger posts these days.

Restoring hotel loyalty is focused on using data mining to build comprehensive customer profiles. Hotel brands want to foster emotional loyalty that creates and retains high revenue customers. Differentiating hotel loyalty program offers to encourage loyalty from the kind of customers the hotel brand wants to retain is what I read into the [Deloitte] report.

Reinventing hotel loyalty programs with an objective to create a relationship-based commitment that is demonstrated by a larger share of spend with the preferred hotel brand is the objective.

Is this starting to sound like marriage?

Loyalty Traveler – Go Ask ALIS: Reinventing Hotel Loyalty (January 24, 2013)

The frequency of reports stating hotel loyalty members are not really loyal is another trend in the hotel industry news and research for 2013.

I am not suggesting that a revenue based elite status component similar to the airline industry is coming soon to the hotel industry. The more immediate trend seems to be targeted offers for the most profitable hotel loyalty members. Several brands have done that this year. The most recent IHG Rewards Club promotion, The Big Win, is an example of individualized targeted promotion terms we will likely see more of in 2014.

Is IHG sending me to London for the Big Win? (Loyalty Traveler – August 25, 2014).

So, check your email for that 100,000 HHonors bonus points offer for staying at all ten Hilton brands. You might be surprised.

You know your travel pattern and loyalty relationship with hotel brands.

Just don’t be surprised when the targeted hotel loyalty promotion offers do not reach your inbox. And don’t abuse the hotel loyalty customer service representatives when demanding to reconsider your own account for inclusion in the targeted promotion offer. 

The hotel loyalty program knows your travel pattern and bottom-line revenue value to their brand too.

*****

Ric Garrido of Monterey, California is writer and owner of Loyalty Traveler.

Loyalty Traveler shares news and views on hotels, hotel loyalty programs and vacation destinations for frequent guests.

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