How does the NEW Millennium & Copthorne ‘My Millennium’ hotel loyalty scheme work?

Millennium & Copthorne is a hotel chain with a presence across the UK, Asia, North America and New Zealand.

It relaunched its loyalty scheme as My Millennium in 2016, and just has just given it a major overhaul.

I thought it was worth having a look at what has changed.

About Millennium & Copthorne Hotels

M&C comprises two core brands with some smaller add-ons. There are 130 hotels in total of which 110 take part in the loyalty programme.

Millennium Collection, operating under the Millennium, Grand Millennium and M Hotel brands, runs around 70 five star and high-end four star properties.  These are concentrated on major business centres.

Copthorne Collection, operating under the Copthorne and Kingsgate brands, runs around 40 midscale properties, mainly in regional centres.  It operates in the UK, New Zealand, Middle East, Malaysia and Singapore.

M Collection is a new brand for Millennium’s lifestyle hotels which trade under the M Social and Studio M names. There are only a handful of sites so far.

Leng’s Collection is a catch-all name for the unbranded properties owned by the group, including The Chelsea Harbour Hotel (below), The Bailey’s Hotel in London and the Hard Days Night hotel in Liverpool.

The Biltmore in Mayfair, which recently left Hilton’s LXR brand, will be the foundation of a new ‘Luxury’ division.

The group also owns some hotels which are branded by other groups, such as the Grand Hyatt Taipei and the Novotel New York Times Square. These do not take part of MyMillennium.

The My Millennium loyalty scheme

My Millennium is designed to reward guests who stay at those hotels owned by the group which are run under their own brands. 

This means, primarily, the Millennium, Copthorne and Kingsgate hotels.  Hotels managed by other chains under their own brands, such as the Millennium Hilton properties, do not take part. (Note that the Millennium Hilton New York, pictured below, is no longer a Hilton and is now branded as Millennium.)

There are 17 participating hotels in the UK, of which 14 are branded Millennium or Copthorne. The full hotel list is here.

Get $20 for joining

The key reason to join My Millennium – even if you are only staying one night – is for the 10% discount.  It is automatic to all scheme members at participating hotels.

You will also receive a $20 dining voucher when joining. This can be redeemed with a minimum spend of $50 and must be used within 30 days of joining.

It isn’t clear if you can use this voucher at a hotel restaurant as a non-guest – I suspect you can, because you can definitely earn points from dining as a non-guest (I’ve done it myself).

New members earn bonus points

There are a number of incentives to get new members to get involved:

• 500 MyPoints for joining
• 500 MyPoints for setting your communication preferences
• 250 MyPoints for completing your profile
• 250 points for downloading the My Millennium app
• 500 points for booking your first stay

Complete all these actions and you will have 2,000 MyPoints after your first stay. This isn’t hugely valuable, of course, given that you need 2,600 MyPoints to get $10 of credit.

Membership tiers

The new 2024 programme has brought back membership tiers: Classic, Silver and Prestige. The previous structure had only one elite level – Prestige – which required 10 nights per year.

The new structure looks like this:

• Classic – 0-9 nights per year

• Silver – 10-19 nights per year or $625 of restaurant spend

• Prestige – 20+ nights per year or $1,250 of restaurant spend

Classic members earn 10 MyPoints per $1 when staying in a hotel and 5 points per $1 when dining as a non-staying guest. Members receive 15% off dining (drinks excluded).

Silver members will earn 15 MyPoints per $1 when staying in a hotel and 5 points per $1 when dining as a non-staying guest.

Benefits include early check-in and late check-out, a welcome amenity and complimentary meals for children. Members receive 20% off dining (drinks excluded).

Prestige members will earn 20 MyPoints per $1 when staying in a hotel and 5 points per $1 when dining as a non-staying guest.

Additional benefits over Silver include club lounge access and room upgrades as well as 25% off dining (drinks excluded).

All members receive a birthday bonus comprising a dining discount and bonus points on stays during the month.

Beware points expiry

Points expire after 12 months.  This is a hard expiry and there is nothing you can do to extend their life.  However, it appears from the FAQ that you can transfer your MyPoints to someone else, seemingly for free.

Redemption options

The scheme is sensibly structured and accepts that a small footprint means that most members will struggle to earn a large number of points.

You cannot see the redemption price list without signing up and logging in.  As well as free nights and room upgrades, M&C also offers redemptions, club lounge access, food and drinks vouchers, free laundry and spa treatments.

Redeeming for food and beverage vouchers

Points can be converted into dining vouchers at the rate of 2,600 points = $10. Converted to £, you’re getting 0.3p per point.

At the earning rate of 10 points per $1 of room spend, you would need to spend $260 before tax to get a $10 food and beverage voucher. This is a 3.8% return.

It gets a lot better at the top tier. Once you hit Prestige you are earning 20 points per $1 which is equivalent to a 7.7% return on your pre-tax spend.

It is actually a little better than this because the redemption rate improves at higher levels. A $100 voucher only requires 22,000 points instead of (10 x 2,600) 26,000 points.

Redeeming for free nights

Room redemptions are based directly on the cost of the room you want.  I ran a few examples and it works out at roughly 0.4p per point.

You can redeem either in part or in full for room redemptions.

If you earn 10 points worth 0.4p each (4p in total) for every $1 spent on your room, you are getting a return of around 5% on your pre-tax room rate. The rate increases substantially if you have Silver or Prestige status.

Room redemptions are marginally better value than food and beverage redemptions, but not by enough for it to seriously impact how you choose to spend your points.

Redeeming for gift cards

You can also use your My Points for various gift cards.

In the UK, they start at 7,210 points for £20 of Uber or Amazon credit. This is 0.28p per point, so roughly the same as taking hotel dining vouchers.

Is this a good return?

At sub-4% of your pre-tax spend, assuming you don’t have Silver or Prestige status, it is a pretty low return.

It gets a lot better if you hit Prestige status with your return doubling to nearer 8%.

You may also value being able to redeem for ‘as good as cash’ items such as Uber or Amazon credit, rather than being forced to use your points for more hotel stays.

Can you convert points to airline miles?

No.  It is not possible to convert your points into airline miles.  You also cannot convert any credit card or other points into My Millennium points.

You CAN earn airline miles instead of points – see below.

Can you earn airline miles instead of loyalty points?

Millennium & Copthorne has a number of airline partnerships, although they do NOT work with Avios or Virgin Flying Club.

The list of partners has shrunk hugely in recently years and now consists only of:

• Air New Zealand Airpoints
• JAL Mileage Bank
• Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer

Details can be found here.

Conclusion

Unless you are working at a client based near a Millennium or Copthorne property, it is unlikely that My Millennium will become a key programme for you. 

For occasional stays earning only a small number of points, you are likely to end up redeeming for Uber or Amazon credit.

Historically I suggested forgetting the scheme entirely and booking via Hotels.com to earn 10% back in Hotels.com Rewards. Now that Hotels.com Rewards has been replaced in the UK by the terrible OneKey programme with a return of just 2%, this is no longer a good option.

If you do have regular stays, Millennium & Copthorne has some high quality hotels in its portfolio (admittedly outside the UK – the UK ones are not outstanding) and you may be able to leverage a run of stays at Copthorne Newcastle into something more glamorous elsewhere.

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