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Hotel loyalty-program points now swapped for gifts, not rooms

December 16, 2009 |

Some large hotel chains, including Marriott and InterContinental Hotels, are finding that more members of their customer-loyalty programs are redeeming points not for overnight stays but for merchandise, like jewelry and electronics, apparently to use as holiday presents, reports The Wall Street Journal.

InterContinental, owner of the 3,300-hotel Holiday Inn brand, registered a 15% increase of members using their points to buy gifts in November from the same month last year. In comparison, the volume of IHG members using points to buy gifts in the first 10 months of this year was flat from the same period in 2008. The most popular items this month are pearl earrings, binoculars and mixing bowls.

Marriott, which manages more than 3,200 hotels globally, logged a 14% increase in the number of points redeemed for merchandise in November in comparison to the same month last year. Marriott's most popular items include Dyson vacuum cleaners, Nintendo Wii videogame consoles, iPods, laptop computers and flat-panel televisions.

Hilton Worldwide Inc. says redemptions for merchandise jumped 23% in the first week of this month from a year earlier.

"I think people are trying to save more of their own money," said Don Berg, vice president of loyalty programs at InterContinental, also known as IHG. "It's basically a magnification of a year-long trend we've seen that says, 'I'm holding onto my wallet a little tighter and I'm going to use currency that doesn't come out of my pay account."'

Get the full story at The Wall Street Journal (free content)

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