How do the Accor ALL PLUS ibis and ALL PLUS Voyageur hotel discount cards work?

Accor, the company behind Novotel, Mercure, Ibis, Raffles, Pullman, Fairmont and many other hotel brands, shook up its two subscription cards in 2023.

I thought it was worth a look at whether they are a good investment. After all, you are expected to pay up-front for potential savings which only emerge later.

You can find full details of the two Accor ALL PLUS subscription cards, and apply, here.

Let’s look at each of the cards in turn.

The ALL PLUS ibis card

This card sells for €99 and covers stays at ibis, ibis Styles and ibis Budget hotels.

You need to use this link to apply.

The card benefits are:

• 15% discount on stays at ibis hotels (discount valid on all public rates, not just Best Flexible Rate)
• discount valid against up to two rooms per stay
• guaranteed room availability up to two days before arrival
• 10 free status nights in Accor Live Limitless

There are two points I want to flag here:

• whilst you get a 15% discount with this card, you would – without it – get an Accor Live Limitless member discount of up to 10% regardless. This means that the actual additional saving will average 5%-8%.

• your 10 free status nights get you instant Silver status in Accor Live Limitless (key benefits are a welcome drink and the possibility of late check out) and means that you will hit Gold status if you do another 20 nights (usually requires 30 nights)

When I discussed the card with Accor at launch, it described it as ‘transactional’. This is a fair assessment. If you think you will do enough ibis stays to justify the €99 fee then you will buy it and if not, you won’t.

The ALL PLUS Voyageur card

This card sells for €199.

You need to use this link to apply.

The card benefits are:

• 20% discount across 12 luxury and premium brands and 15% off at ten midscale and economy brands (discount valid on all public rates, not just Best Flexible Rate)
• discount valid against up to two rooms per stay
• guaranteed room availability up to two days before arrival
• 20 free status nights in Accor Live Limitless

Here are the participating brands:

• Luxury: Sofitel, SO/, Sofitel LEGEND, MGallery
• Premium: 21C Museum Hotels, Mondrian, Pullman, Swissôtel, Mövenpick, Grand Mercure, The Sebel, Adagio Premium
• Midscale: Handwritten Collection, Novotel, Mercure, Tribe, Adagio Original
• Economy: ibis budget, ibis, ibis Styles, greet, Adagio Access

There are three points I want to flag:

• not all Accor brands participate – Fairmont and Raffles, the two most expensive Accor brands, are missing for a start

• whilst you get a 15%-20% discount with this card, you would – without it – get an Accor Live Limitless member discount of up to 10% regardless. This means that the actual additional saving will be lower.

• your 20 free status nights get you instant Silver status in Accor Live Limitless (key benefits are a welcome drink and the possibility of late check out) and means that you will hit Gold status if you do another 10 nights (usually requires 30 nights)

Buy both and the status nights stack

The status nights benefits from these cards stack. If you buy both (and this makes little sense otherwise, because the €199 Voyageur card has all of the benefits, and more, of the €99 ibis card) you would get a combined total of 30 free status nights.

30 nights is enough for Gold status in Accor Live Limitless which would get you a one level upgrade, subject to availability, and a welcome amenity.

It would also mean that Platinum would only require you to do another 30 nights under your own steam.

Is this worth €298? It’s up to you. If it is, I suspect it is better doing it early in the calendar year, so that you’d get up to 23 months of status – the rest of the current year and all of the following year.

You can see the full list of Accor status benefits on their website here.

There is a snag with this though

There are two ways of earning Accor Live Limitless status – by nights, or by spend.

I assume that few people achieve it via nights because the spend thresholds are so low.

It doesn’t make a lot of difference if you get 10, 20 or 30 free status nights via the two ALL PLUS cards because, unless all of your nights are in ibis hotels or in low cost countries, you are still likely to qualify on spend before you hit the nights target.

Gold, for example, requires 30 nights or €2,800 of spend. Even with 10 free status nights from the ALL PLUS ibis card, you would still qualify on spend rather than nights if your average nightly room rate ex tax was (€2,800 / 20) over €140.

Platinum requires 60 nights or €5,600 of spend. Even with 20 free status nights from the ALL PLUS Voyageur card, you would still qualify on spend rather than nights if your average nightly room rate ex tax was (€5,600 / 40) over €140.

Of course, if you buy both cards, you get instant Gold status via your 30 free status nights and are just 30 nights short of Platinum.

If you travel with friends or family, you also need to factor in that whilst spend from booking two rooms per night counts for status, two rooms only get you one elite night credit. This makes it even more likely that you will earn status based on spend and not nights.

Conclusion

The two Accor ALL PLUS subscription cards are easy to understand and can clearly save some people money.

You’ll know if you are the sort of person who does enough annual Accor stays at participating brands to get value from this.

My only criticism is that there is nothing here for someone who might be on the margins of switching to Accor.

Silver status isn’t worth much. You are being asked to put up quite a bit of cash with no return unless you do 15-20 nights in the following 12 months. I would prefer to see Accor shoulder a bit of the risk in the first year via a sign-up bonus or a first year discount.

You can learn more about the status benefits and requirements of Accor Live Limitless on this page of their site.

You can find out more about the ALL PLUS subscription cards, and apply, here.