Why I bought an ibis Business card to get Accor Gold – and made 2.5x my money

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• Lou says:

  5 Nov5 November 05:26

  It’s small in the scheme of things, but if you normally have s drink or two at the hotel bar on your own dime, the free drinks voucher is going to count for a lot of you hit a lot of the cheaper Accor hotels

  • apbj says:

    5 Nov5 November 06:23

    Agree. I have found the Ibis Business very useful and, unlike top tier status in the other chains, Ibis consistently recognises me on arrival. OK, it’s just a Kitkat and a pint of lager, but that’s s’more than IHG and Marriott manage half the time and I’m Spire/Platinum.

    I convert ALL to Club Eurostar. The rate isn’t great but it converts otherwise orphaned points from odd Ibis/Novotel stays into something I use regularly.

    • Guernsey Globetrotter says:

      5 Nov5 November 08:10

      The welcome drinks are a real bonus – that first one in the hotel bar after a long trip is always even more satisfying when it’s free. Saved 14 euros on a Heineken at the Biarritz Sofitel last month and Mrs Trotter enjoyed 2 x £20 glasses of the Charles Legend Brut Royale at the Sofitel St James later that trip while I quaffed and paid for a (much cheaper) beer 😎

  • apbjz says:

    5 Nov5 November 06:24

    Agree. I have found the Ibis Business very useful and, unlike top tier status in the other chains, Ibis consistently recognises me on arrival. OK, it’s just a Kitkat and a pint of lager, but that’s s’more than IHG and Marriott manage half the time and I’m Spire/Platinum.

    I convert ALL to Club Eurostar. The rate isn’t great but it converts otherwise orphaned points from odd Ibis/Novotel stays into something I use regularly.

• Pjaw says:

  5 Nov5 November 07:08

  I use/ed (pre Covid) Accor for leisure trips in Europe with the dog as Accor are very mut tolerant. Ibis styles are fine for an overnight on route to somewhere and if life gets back to normal I was considering ibis business to boost the points. Know it’s not necessarily the USP for head for points but Sofitels are great with dogs.

• Ian says:

  5 Nov5 November 07:53

  As I have not made sufficient stays this year to renew my Accor gold status, I will be buying an Ibis card. Yes the benefits are definitely worth it to me and I’ve always been given a room upgrade in Accor hotels.

  • Guernsey Globetrotter says:

    5 Nov5 November 08:04

    This is my experience too – upgrades are always welcome too. The early check in or late check out option also comes in handy…

• Alex B says:

  5 Nov5 November 08:50

  What are the limitations on guaranteed rooms across various groups? If I wanted to rock up to a major sporting event or NYE where the rooms have been sold out for months could I’d? Would I be quoted a ridiculous price?

• Me says:

  5 Nov5 November 09:42

  I suppose of you are spending £8k on a hotel for a week then it makes sense. A lot of us reading this don’t have that sort of cash for a weeks hotel. Can’t you make the posts more relevant to everyone not just those with thousands of pounds to throw away

  • Rob says:

    5 Nov5 November 09:51

    The most common salary band for HfP readers is £70k-£100k and this is what we reflect in our coverage. We aim at the typical BA Silver or Gold card customer and that person is usually mid- to senior-management for a London based finance, IT or consultancy business. That’s our market.

    Unless it is an airport hotel, we only cover 4-5* hotels and we never review long-haul Economy flights unless it is a jokey piece like Rhys’s trip to Australia. Other travel websites are available, I believe.

    We get paid roughly £1 if someone books an economy long-haul flight off our links. We get paid roughly £40 if someone books a business class long-haul flight. Accor pays us 10% for promoting luxury hotels and 2% for selling a £40 ibis Budget. Our overheads are over £100,000 per year before I can start paying myself a penny. Where would you focus?

    • AndrewM says:

      5 Nov5 November 10:58

      I agree with what Rob says here, where the focus for them is. I am not near that salary bracket and I am not a Silver/Gold customer. But still I have found good value from the articles and it helps me to use grey areas to maximise Opportunities to travel in more comfort that I normally would. For example, I have to travel to South England once a month with work and have to book the hotel via our corporate travel page. I used to just get the closest hotel, which was ok. Now I either book Holiday Inn or Hilton which is just 15 mins away. I collect the points and eventually it will allow me a few nights free. Same with petrol, used to never collect points. Now I collect with Nectar and it all starts adding up. Then talk about Amex rewards and other stuff, it really starts to snowball after sometime. A lot I learned by reading the articles and peoples comments. HfP is one of the best pages out there.

    • Chas says:

      5 Nov5 November 12:17

      +1. You’ve got to know your market and target it accordingly. But even within that, you can’t please all the people all of the time – even with the salary band Rob refers to, an £8k hotel bill for a week is a huge proportion of post-tax pay, so would only be directly relevant to a smaller part of the readership. But it was still an interesting article for me even though I wouldn’t pay that in cash for a week’s hotel. Part of the joy of this website is the aspirational luxury side of things, which points and miles can help facilitate.

  • John says:

    5 Nov5 November 16:05

    I guess HFP doesn’t make any money from us poor people

    • Rob says:

      5 Nov5 November 17:11

      In total honesty … no, we don’t, given that ad revenue is only about 0.5p per page.

      We don’t care though – all are welcome, especially if you can contribute advice or experience to the comments. There are various other websites where I don’t contribute financially but benefit from the contributions of others – it all balances out in the end.

• Ikaz says:

  5 Nov5 November 10:00

  Gold gives you 50% extra points not 100% extra points.
  This means that out of 18,872 points earned 6,120 of them were due to you being gold, not half of the points you earned (that would be a 100% bonus).
  Still a decent return at £105, but not quite 2.5x in this case.

  • TGLoyalty says:

    5 Nov5 November 11:15

    He says he earned c19k base points and was given c9.5k on top for being gold … not the total was c19k

    The total would’ve been c28.5k

    • Ikaz says:

      5 Nov5 November 11:52

      That makes sense, I had forgotten that Accor also splits out the base points and elite bonus points on the statement in 2 transactions

• Neal says:

  5 Nov5 November 10:20

  Don’t forget the upgrade, there’s value in that too. Being a Gold was upgraded to Deluxe Suite last month at MGallery Cheltenham (booked standard) and it was very nice.

  • Guernsey Globetrotter says:

    5 Nov5 November 17:48

    Anecdotally and in my own experience, Accor is one of the better chains for status recognition and upgrades. This year we have had decent upgrades at the Miramar Thalassa in Biarritz and both the Sofitel St James and Mantis Draycott in London. The only one that didn’t was the Mercure Manchester Picadilly and as they let us have the rooms on an early check in at 10 a.m. I wasn’t going to grumble (although I wouldn’t recommend that hotel in general – it is in a great location but rooms are looking quite tired).

    • Chrism20 says:

      5 Nov5 November 19:38

      Out of curiosity what did you think of the Draycott?

• QFFlyer says:

  5 Nov5 November 11:07

  Accor Plus is another one worth looking at, only gives you Silver from the get-go, but 50% off dining (variable) soon adds up, and the free night certificate can easily more than cover the cost of signing up.

  • TGLoyalty says:

    5 Nov5 November 11:16

    Only applicable in Asia though?

    • QFFlyer says:

      5 Nov5 November 11:32

      Oh haha I hadn’t even considered that. Definitely covers Australia, so depends if you’re in the region.

      I signed up in Malaysia and the cost was something like £75 (pricing is by country), free night I used on a suite at Pullman Melbourne (with a $110 supplement, so still “saved” ~$300 based on the best rate that day.). Dining discount saved me around $80 on dinner at Peppers Launceston in Tassie.

      I’ve only had it a few months, but it’s been a great investment, so worth considering for those in the region, but didn’t register that it didn’t apply worldwide, my bad.

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