Alex Cruz to become Chief Executive of SAS?

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• Patrick Cold says:

  6 Apr6 April 09:32

  The IHG programme, which was bad enough anyway, has now become even less competitive. I am Spire Ambassador but won`t be for much longer.

• Matarredonda says:

  6 Apr6 April 09:41

  Disappointing but suspect it is in line with UK prices for holidays which have seen crazy rises.
  Was looking at the Holiday Inn in Colchester and points only prices gone up 40%.
  Going to be exceedingly expensive to holiday in the UK this year.

  • memesweeper says:

    6 Apr6 April 10:05

    Some spots in the EU have gone up threefold in points. Might suggest some people are actually *booking* again…

  • Travel Strong says:

    6 Apr6 April 10:39

    It’s easy to run searches and demonstrate that it is not linked to cash prices. But it could well be in *anticipation* of increased booking, and in the hope of gobbling up the points people have gathered during covid times.

• Heran says:

  6 Apr6 April 09:50

  I linked my card to both Airtime Reward and Virgin’s shop away, and my purchase at Morrison was tracked in both. There are some retailers with BA too.

• Andrew says:

  6 Apr6 April 10:31

  Card-clash is a definite irritation, if you register the same card with two organisations (eg BA and Virgin), it’s the same service provider behind it. You can then end up with your data streaming down the BA route only to find that there’s no Matalan or Morrison’s offers and it’s a dead end, there’s no revert to Virgin stream.

  As is the streaming of data. I paid a £330 bill at Paypoint till using a debit card. Broken down as £300 & £30. The supervisor showed the cashier what to do for the first bill, then did the second bill on her own till for speed. For the overnight batch processing that happens, Till A’s £30 later transaction posted to my current account before Till B’s £300 transaction earlier. £3 instead of £30!

  With Nectar Connect, PAW (I have two logins with different offers), BA, Virgin and Airtime, I’m going to have to be really savvy about which cards I register and use for different retailers.

• James says:

  6 Apr6 April 10:51

  IHG want us to buy points after utterly gutting the programme ! Need about a 200% bonus to make it break-even with some devaluations.

  Perhaps a few people will use it to top up for a reward (which has probably rocketed in cost without warning) and then dump IHG.

  • James says:

    6 Apr6 April 12:58

    Get a grip, James.

    • Rob says:

      6 Apr6 April 14:53

      There is no devaluation. Just spent a few hours running the numbers from a large number of hotels and the average value per point is, if anything, higher than it used to be. Sorry to spoil your moan.

      What MAY have happened is that IHG is trying to drive reward traffic away from some hotels – possibly those which it expects to hit the 95% occupancy cap which triggers a bonanza payment to the hotel – onto others.

      • ChrisC says:

        6 Apr6 April 15:26

        I’ve posted the detailed figures yesterday but I checked two bookings I have with the Kimpton de Witt and whilst on one trip one night went up to 56k a night other nights went down significantly and the new totals required for my stays if I was booking it now is only a marginal increase of a couple of thousand points.

        Hardly, in my case, enough to toss my toys out of the pram with IHG which is what some people appear to be doing.

        • Anna says:

          6 Apr6 April 15:45

          I’ve got some decent redemption stays locked in but it pays to shop around. I wanted 3 nights at the end of May at the Kimpton Fitzroy and far and away the best deal was to book via Emyr as no deposit was required, he had a 3 for 2 offer plus the usual breakfast plus $100 credit. I booked a superior room, total price £688, already been upgraded to a junior suite which is currently £420 pn. Points price has now gone up to 100k pn for a standard room. If the points pricing lunacy continues I think my ongoing strategy will be to treat myself to cash bookings at high end properties through Emyr (as no status gets free breakfast), and use my points stash where there’s a decent HI/HIE or Indigo/Voco on nights where you can still get the latter for under 30k points. Of course, as long as the cc free night certificate continues we can get 2 free night per year pretty much anywhere, so IHG still very much an option for now.

      • Anna says:

        6 Apr6 April 15:58

        I hope you’re right, AND that it’s short term. There’s a Saturday in October where the Indigo Bath is 51k points, and the HIE Bath is 56k!

      • Aston100 says:

        6 Apr6 April 16:05

        Well I’ve been looking at several IHG properties in New York around Xmas and NYE.
        The points prices are all over the place.

        I’ve booked a HIX for an average of 28.2k per night for 10 nights, just in case prices return to something sensible later.
        All the other hotels around this (Times Square) are a bit silly with their points prices. There is for example another HIX close by that is charging 80k per night on some nights.

        Has anyone seen a worse price than 80k for a HIX, anywhere?

        • Rob says:

          6 Apr6 April 17:02

          What is the cash price though? I mean, NY over NYE is a super-premium event. Frankly I’m surprised you even see reward nights.

      • Rob says:

        6 Apr6 April 16:16

        This makes complete sense and is surely the most likely situation. It’s also one that they wouldn’t be able to communicate the message directly to consumers as it would sound like foul play.

        My self catering accommodation business in Cornwall has suffered a similar fate. We were too slow to re–act to the extreme surge in demand and as a result we have chalets booked for £200 per night which would still be full if we’d charged £5/600 per night.

        We can’t cancel the original bookings of course and as a result will struggle to chase our losses this year.

      • Chrisasaurus says:

        6 Apr6 April 17:52

        But from an franchisee peers perspective the move seems dodgy – if the result is that they’re only getting the basic rate (less than $60?) from almost all redemptions because IHG disincentives the >95% rate, that will surely mean even worse treatment for guests in award stays?

        • Rob says:

          6 Apr6 April 19:26

          I reckon they would be ambivalent as a) they can presumably sell rooms for cash on the 95% night and b) reward guests off-peak drive food and bar spend.

      • Aston100 says:

        6 Apr6 April 18:49

        I can now see what appears to be a newly converted DoubleTree in Manhattan with availability at 30k per night.
        I feel this wasn’t there yesterday.

        The whole thing with rewards availability and rewards pricing in relation to cash feels odd.

        • Aston100 says:

          6 Apr6 April 18:52

          To clarify, I mean there is a new IHG hotel, which looks like it might have been a DoubleTree not long ago.
          The ‘Hotel Central Times Square’. No idea what brand this is under.
          30k per night over Xmas and NYE.
          Sounds very cheap.

• Aston100 says:

  6 Apr6 April 10:56

  My IHG mystery bonus turned out to be 70%

• r* says:

  6 Apr6 April 11:30

  IHG mystery bonus would need to be 300% to take into account unannounced devaluations lol

  • Rob says:

    6 Apr6 April 14:57

    You really shouldn’t believe what you read. Go and run the numbers on 40 hotels picked at random, as I have.

    • Andrew says:

      6 Apr6 April 15:51

      I’m struggling to understand the logic applied to the calculations for the value of points. LHR T4 in Sept, when I need an overnight – HIX £92 cash, 33K points; CP (adjoining property/same property) £110 cash, 21K points. I booked the HIX for the date I need a few weeks ago for 12k – nearly tripling the points price also seems hard to understand.

      • Rob says:

        6 Apr6 April 17:04

        There is no logic, totally agree with that. But, overall, I don’t see any change.

        • TGLoyalty says:

          6 Apr6 April 17:41

          There will ofcourse be logic as it’s a dynamic based on an algorithm, it just isn’t evident to the customer.

          From my perspective there’s still loads of value to be had at the right properties.

    • Robbyrob says:

      6 Apr6 April 17:37

      I got offered80pct today and will be taking them. My existing points cost $1100 vs $1900 cash price for TLV in Sept. Even down at 80pct from the old 100pct offer, I’m sure I will be able to find value…

  • Tracy says:

    6 Apr6 April 20:04

    Totally agree, I booked a Friday night in Manchester last week for 27.5k points, now 60k or cash £186 🤷‍♀️

• Alex Sm says:

  6 Apr6 April 13:53

  SAS is a lovely airline, 1000 miles better than BA. It will be sad to see it going downhill…

  • Lee says:

    6 Apr6 April 14:03

    Not true from my point of view.
    Took 8 months to refund my cancelled flight.
    No extension at all for points expires due to covid
    Unable redemption booking for all star alliance flights
    And more

    • Andrew says:

      6 Apr6 April 15:53

      Sounds like Alex will fit in well at SAS then.

    • tony says:

      6 Apr6 April 16:20

      A bit late now if your points have expired, but apparently you can make *A redemptions with them on the phone.

      My silver status (picked up in 2019) has been extended to the summer of 2022 and the points are valid until 2024.

      Not sure what else Alex can cut, mind, given they now sit 6 across in “business”….

      • The real John says:

        6 Apr6 April 20:34

        It’s not business though – it’s premium econ. I don’t think BA CE qualifies as business either

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