Bits: Starwood / Marriott vs Hilton for luxury, Good To Go – insurance for 65+ and ill travellers

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• Joe says:

  16 Jul16 July 08:47

  I’m not sure I’d ever put Renaissance in the luxury box, they are nice but certainly no better than Hilton and as you say, same probably applies for le meridian (don’t have enough experience of them).

• ThinkSquare says:

  16 Jul16 July 09:36

  Or could it be a combined Marriott-Starwood will have too many competing luxury properties and have to off-load?

  I don’t usually have trouble finding a decent Hilton or IHG hotel anywhere I’d choose to go.

  • Rob says:

    16 Jul16 July 11:28

    You can’t surely believe that running 30 different brands is excessive?!

    • Lady London says:

      16 Jul16 July 22:40

      Well, in a different field, the Estee Lauder company owns at least that many very distinct cosmetic brands. They do such a good job differentiating them in their marketing that I would guess most people don’t know they are all owned by Estee Lauder. They include such diverse brands as MAC, Clinique, Aveda, Origins,Prescriptives Bobbi Brown, Bumble & Bumble (hair), Jo Malone, Creme de la Mer each one of which have very different marketed images of what the brand offers and what type of customer they appeal to. These are all owned by Lauder in mostly pretty silent acquisitions if you were not in the business. LVMH Group is similar in high fashion accessories – it’s really surprising who turns out to be owned by them although their hand behind the brand is not quite so invisible as the Lauder hand behind their brands. Sorry, I’m getting OT.

      So it’s not impossible for a hotel group such as Hilton to manage a large number of front of house brands whilst possibly some synergies in back office – subject to their brand management and marketing expertise..

      • Rob says:

        16 Jul16 July 23:05

        Marriott’s customer isn’t you, though – it is the hotel owner who wants a brand to use. Does he want 30 options? And is he happy with so much potential competition for the loyalty scheme members in the same city?

• harry says:

  16 Jul16 July 10:16

  For balance/ alternative, the Barclays Travel Plus Pack also includes insurance for people under 80 years old at the start of the trip insured. You also get 6 free lounge passes (Dragonpass) and various other benefits. Currently £13.50/ month, increasing to £15.50/ month from September.
  http://www.barclays.co.uk/TravelPlusPack/TravelPlusPack/P1242609324028

  • John says:

    16 Jul16 July 11:47

    What’s really interesting is that they’ve deleted the existing exclusions relating to injuriess/fatalities/losses caused by terrorism, riot, civil unrest, radioactivity, government property seizures etc.

    All these are now covered for the first time (and the basic insurance package now extends worldwide rather than Europe only).

    The plus package is a fiver a month extra than basic, but includes 6 free Dragon Pass lounge entries as the only real extra benefit apart from alleged hotel/parking discounts.

    Think I’ll keep the plus package active after the price increase as overall it works for me, and I value the enhanced insurance offer in these difficult times.

    One thing to note is there’s now a 6 month minimum period, so you can no longer sign up, grab the Dragon Passes and cancel straight after, which I think is reasonable, as you were taking the piss, Harry.

    • harry says:

      16 Jul16 July 16:31

      6 months @ £15.50 is not so bad. Just think about buying drinks & snacks in the terminal – what would that cost? Insurance on top, included.

• Kbuffett says:

  16 Jul16 July 13:48

  Off topic, but I have booked a St Regis property though Trailfinders. Will the property still consider an upgrade on check in as I am SPG Gold?

  • Rob says:

    16 Jul16 July 15:11

    Trailfinders may book it as a normal agency booking which MAY mean you get points and SPG benefits (just as if a corporate travel agent had booked it). It is only the wholesalers like Expedia and booking.com they definitely block.

• Vineet says:

  17 Jul17 July 04:01

  Actually, Hilton in that segment is only 71 (not 94) so its even worse 😛

  I agree with a commentator above that Renaissance and Le Meridien are a stretch, the base figures per brand are given in the source article and the impact of those two is negligible (they have small footprints).

  I had to use some kind of industry scale and I went with the hospitality industry standard of “luxury”) which includes everything down to (and including) Westin, Grand Hyatt, Conrad, JW Marriott. Renaissance and Le Meridien seemed closer to these than to Sheraton, Hyatt Regency, Hilton or Marriott on an average.

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