News and notes from around the interweb:
- Starwood has added Avianca’s LifeMiles as an airline partner. It’s not a good idea to transfer Starpoints to LifeMiles, the Star Alliance airline program sells their miles too cheap, but it’s striking to see continued added Starwood-Airline partnerships like Aegean for instance and especially as the Marriott merger approaches closing. Hopefully these partnerships will survive – and strong transfer rates survive – the merger.
- With Marriott’s acquisition of Starwood, they’ve got 30 brands which is crazy. Most of their members won’t even know when and where they can give their Marriott Rewards number. Skift explains each of their 30 brands. Some of them need to be consolidated.
View of the Marriott Boca Raton from the Renaissance Boca Raton - Apparently the Greyhound Road Rewards site offers good hotel discounts
- India’s government declares that passengers may “not indulge in photography while embarking/disembarking from the aircraft.” Photos or video inflight that outrage the modesty of a woman are already against the law there.
- Effective October 15, 2016, Alaska Mileage Plan elite members will only be able to upgrade companions on the same record locator
- In many ways Singapore Airlines has the best service in the air, are they considering ground services to match?
Singapore Airlines First Class Check-in, Singapore - American’s new uniform photo shoot:
Gary, i’ve seen rumors that SPG gold will be matched to Marriott gold. I (like many) have SPG gold thru my Amex Plat….do you think Marriott will grant gold status to folks like me? would this be a 1-year thing, or will Amex Plat grant permanent Marriott gold?
They can probably truncate it down to ~25 brands. Most of the high-end names shall retain, but it’s definitely overlapping to have 4 brands to host the indies – Luxury Collection, Autograph Collection, Tribute, and Design.
Additionally, I don’t see EDITION brand having a unique niche to itself. The regional brands are the biggest headache (e.g. AC Hotels, Delta Hotels, Protea etc) because they’re costly to maintain yet lack global brand recognition.
I think Sorenson already mentioned that the “Sheraton” brand needs a revamp – it’s really all over the place in terms of what one can expect when staying at a “Sheraton”.
For “lifestyle” column, they should make W for high-end, Renaissance for mid-tier, and aloft for mass market.