What does Fans of M.O. (Mandarin Oriental’s hotel loyalty programme) offer you when you stay?

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• JDB says:

  7 May7 May 06:16

  Mandarin and Peninsula are fantastic at offering significant guaranteed benefits if you call or email them, particularly for repeat guests. The programmes like Virtuoso, FHR usually won’t allow upgrades to the better suites, something both P and MO will guarantee on booking directly.

  • Paul says:

    7 May7 May 07:16

    Agreed that direct negotation with a hotel is worth investigating. A few years ago we stayed ay the Hong Kong Intercontinental, and when I contacted them to ask about harbour view rooms, and proximity to local construction activity, I was offered a guaranteed double room upgrade and full lounge access after we had already enjoyed late check out, ahead of a very late evening flight.

  • Harry T says:

    7 May7 May 10:32

    Good to know, thanks.

• Alan says:

  7 May7 May 06:30

  This type of approach is not so uncommon, although making it only on fully flexible is a bit different. It was how Accor’s scheme really started before it gave any collectible rewards. I’ve stayed at independents who also do very similar giving stuff like free wi-fi etc.

  It’s a very good basic approach. Get clients to book direct and the hotel has not got to pay the booking agent say 20% commission. Generally to be on said booking site they cannot offer a room discount so they have to make it a ‘club’.

  • JDB says:

    7 May7 May 06:40

    Yes, the approach is similar to Amex – pay us a very high price and we will give you some of that back in credit (and pay away a big commission) when the guest would be better off with a lower price.

    • Alan says:

      7 May7 May 07:41

      I do not know about this high end scheme, but the others I’ve used are actually either cheaper or the same price plus added extras compared to the booking via comparison site. So no very different to Amex. Actually Amex is similar to any of the Expedia schemes, whereby book wit( us and we will give you a small percentage of our commission back as a reward.

      • JDB says:

        7 May7 May 07:51

        Sorry @Alan – I wasn’t clear. I was referring to eg the Amex Plat card where you are charged a large fee and they condescend to give you back some of your own money if you shop/eat where they tell you. For hotel booking, Amex is indeed similar to any other OTA.

        For me the similarity is that for these agency programmes or FHR etc. you have to book the highest rate in order to be given back a very little bit via benefits whereas one can get all the benefits directly at a lower price – I might forgo the $100 credit, but if I’m saving $500+ and get everything else plus guaranteed multi level upgrade rather than subject to availability, I’m happy and so is the hotel.

        • Alan says:

          7 May7 May 09:12

          Ok that makes sense. But there are cases, for instance Best Hotels in Spain, where you cannot get it cheaper elsewhere if you book at the right time and get the added ‘member’ benefits.

          But your Amex fee is right in some cases. However fair to say for some the BAPP companion voucher makes the fee worth paying.

• Sue says:

  7 May7 May 06:39

  Surely free WiFi should not be a benefit. Paying for it (via Emyr?) belongs in the dark ages. I won’t book a hotel that charges.

  • Novice says:

    7 May7 May 16:52

    So true. Some cities have free wifi in the entire city now so places which are offering it as a benefit are essentially untrue because you can get into free WiFi zones everywhere now.

• Paul says:

  7 May7 May 07:04

  My wife and I stayed at the Kuala Lumpur MO for 4 nights at the back end of last year. To get the best of both worlds, I separately booked 3 nights with Emyr and the final night through the Fans programme to ensure a late check out for an evening flight back to UK.
  The fact I had done this was mentioned at check in, but caused no problems and we received all the expected perks (and retained the same room throughout). The only minor issue was being told that our room key couldn’t be programmed for the whole stay, and we would need to ask reception to reactivate the room key for our final night.

  • Bobthebuilder says:

    7 May7 May 12:08

    We just stayed here last week, booking through Emyr. Note that the F&B credit is used to automatically assign you afternoon tea, not for you to spend as you wish. I did ask if they would consider swapping, but they said this is the offer at this particular MO. Fair enough. Unfortunately, the Malaysian afternoon tea was no longer available (think it was a Ramadan special menu) so we were stuck with the regular English afternoon tea. A bit of a shame to reach all the way here just to have scones and tea.

• Philip says:

  7 May7 May 07:17

  Can you still use Fans of MO Elite Member benefits via Emyr?

  • ATP says:

    7 May7 May 07:23

    IME No. it’s one or the other.

• Nick G says:

  7 May7 May 08:00

  Anyone have any experience of booking through fans of MO and choosing free breakfast as a family of 3? Been years since I’ve stayed at an MO but looking at one next year for my 50th.

• Tim says:

  7 May7 May 10:33

  I believe that the Fans scheme has three levels albeit this is not published. The reason I suggest this is because as an ‘Elite Fan’ (Level 2) I get offered guaranteed upgrades as one of my benefits rather than ‘subject to availability’ ones. This is worth a lot as I stay at the Bangkok property and other Mandarin hotels regularly. As top level hotels like Mandarin, Four Seasons, Aman etc are, (post COVID), charging up to/around £2,000 for entry level rooms (ouch) any guaranteed upgrade is worth having.

  • JDB says:

    7 May7 May 16:43

    The strange thing is that these higher end chains may not have schemes with prescribed tier benefits and or offer points, but they certainly reward loyalty better than those schemes that do. They are by and large building their businesses for the longer term.

    • Novice says:

      7 May7 May 16:57

      @JDB, that’s why there’s no point chasing status in mainstream hotel chains if you are leisure travellers because a person can never actually get to any level which is beneficial but something like this is great.

• Yorkshire rich says:

  7 May7 May 12:58

  Having stayed at the MO in Singapore the other month, I can tell you that having tried to negotiate a price for my stay, it was indeed much better value booking through Emyr. As we had an infant, we couldn’t use the lounge but could choose anything we desired on the menu in the restaurant. Suffice to say, that was incredible value.

  Interesting to know about the MO KL, and the afternoon tea arrangements as we stayed there also, but we booked that through Amex. Think we will book through Amex again for the late check out, before our evening flight back to LHR.

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