Summertime and the Hotel Bonus Points/Offers Continue

If anyone thought things were getting better in the hotel industry, just take a look at the latest salvos the chain hotel loyalty programs are offering for stays this summer.

Starwood started the bonanza by offering 1 free night for every two stays until July 31st - a very rich offer - especially because the awards can be redeemed at some of Starwood's most exclusive hotels. Like all the chains, Starwood segments hotels into specific categories based on average room rate. Starwood starts at Category 1 (e.g. Four Points by Sheraton Saginaw) all the way up to a few uber-luxury hotels in Category 7 such as the W Resort Maldives. The free nights promo allows redemptions (with no blackout dates or capacity controls) as high as Category 6. The nights may be earned at any category of hotel. So, stay a couple of times at a Four Points and then you could redeem for a free night at the St. Regis Rome, the Westin Paris or the St Regis San Francisco. The only catch is that you can only redeem on Fri/Sat/Sun nights and you have to use them by the end of September.

Not to be outdone, Intercontinental Hotels has made a similar offer which offers a free night after two stays as well between now and July 3rd. However, IHG limits guests to earning four free nights (after eight stays) but they do allow redemption until December 26th. IHG allows redemption at all hotels worldwide (except a few in Japan) which makes this a great promotion as well.

Marriott jumped on board this morning with a similar stay and play offer which offers a free night after 3 stays between now and August 31st. The free nights can be used until the end of the year. Alas, Marriott is not allowing redemptions at their most elegant (and expensive!) hotels - only Categories 1-4 (out of a total of 8) are allowed for redemption. So, don't plan on earning your free nights in Cleveland and burning them in Paris.

Hilton has an offer of 1000 bonus HHonors points per night running until the end of June but we expect that they'll have something more exciting soon.

In the current environment, the chains are particularly concerned about losing even a tiny bit of revenue share from the road warriors who participate heavily in these loyalty programs. Hence, the chains are in a "me-too " battle - and the winners are clearly consumers who are still hitting the road.

A New Travelocity Homepage Lands

Monday brings a new homepage from Travelocity. Its certainly a change from the past with a broad swath for marketing messages across the top of the home page. In fact, the current message is so jarring, we almost thought we had ended up at some sort of Swedish rental car site. Not quite sure why that huge yellow stripe at the top of the otherwise blue page is there - bringing cheery news about H1N1 - that is quite a marketing message.

That said, the new focus is clearly on bringing deals to the forefront. Across the top and down the right hand side and in numerous tabs are plugs for deals, deals and more deals. They still don't appear to be customized or focused (at least on the home page) but Travelocity is clearly dialing up the promotional content.

And Henry Harteveldt would be proud - the "ExperienceFinder" has been prominently moved up to the top navigation bar - Henry has previously bemoaned Travelocity for taking one of their best features and hiding it in no-mans land.

But, other than a slightly revised layout and new row of tabs across the top, we don't see a huge sea of change here. In fact, we really have to question why the search button (which enables a user to actually engage with the site on the home page!) has been moved beneath the fold.