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Review: Is Accor Live Limitless the best hotel loyalty scheme? (Part 2)

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In my previous article yesterday I outlined ‘the facts’ of the Accor Live Limitless loyalty scheme.  This article is my personal opinion, highlighting areas where I think you might want to focus. Next weekend we will move on to Hilton Honors.

The 10-second summary:

Strong points – big global network except in the Americas, decent Platinum benefits including lounge access, elite members generally treated well, luxury options improved with Swissotel / Raffles / Fairmont / Mondrian / Delano acquisitions, Avios (via Qatar Airways) and Air France KLM partnerships lets you earn Accor points whilst flying, Accor Experiences offers interesting redemptions, Suite Night Upgrades for elite members can now be booked online, soft landings if you do not retain status

Weak points – points have a fixed monetary value so no opportunity for arbitrage, Accor Experiences redemptions limited in UK, no credit card partner, no free breakfast for Platinum unless there is a lounge, no free breakfast for Diamond midweek

The longer version:

I have taken a far stronger interest in Accor Live Limitless in recent years. I earned Diamond after a pricey stay at Fairmont Royal Pavilion in Barbados (review here) in 2021 and I earned it back for 2024 after a couple of Fairmont Windsor Park stays due to the ability to count points earned from multiple rooms. I have just dropped to Platinum due to their guaranteed ‘soft landing’.

What I have found is working for me is:

  • earning status points on two rooms per night which is great as we normally take a separate room for our children
  • being able to earn Suite Night Upgrades and redeem them online, locking in the upgrade at the time of booking
  • being able to use points for Accor Experiences redemptions – I don’t necessarily need more hotel nights, even if they are free! – although UK options have been thin recently
  • getting a soft landing if I don’t renew status – Accor is a chain where we seem to drop a large sum in one go every couple of years at a resort, and I can leverage that to get a year of Diamond and then a year Platinum (and even the year of Gold after that isn’t totally useless)
  • getting a handful of Avios in my Qatar Airways Privilege Club account after each stay – ON TOP of my Accor points

This is why it works for ME though. There are many reasons it might not work for YOU:

We don’t find Accor Live Limitless exciting

I think that Accor gets a slightly tough time from Head for Points.  Why?  Because part of the skill of the miles and points game is arbitrage – redeeming points at places which offer an oversized return.  Because Accor has a ‘points equal cash’ structure (1,000 points = €20 off), you can’t beat the system.

The upside, of course, is that you can use your points to book any room category at any hotel on any date. Most hotel schemes restrict you to redeeming for the smallest standard rooms.

Things are improving a little via Accor Experiences – using your points for tickets to cultural and sporting events – but the UK selection so far has been limited and London focussed. It is not yet on a par with what Hilton and Marriott offer.

It’s hard to get bonus points via promotions

Accor runs very few big global promotions making it harder to build up your points.  The promotions it does run often have very narrow booking windows and require 2-3 night minimum stays which makes them tricky to use. 

Not all hotels are part of the programme

Accor has an odd habit of investing, or buying outright, hotel brands and then not integrating them into Accor Live Limitless. You can’t earn or spend points at The Hoxton chain or Gleneagles, for example. At the other end of the scale, ibis Budget hotels in some countries are excluded. It doesn’t help members to know where they stand.

The website is an IT nightmare

The website is, by far, the buggiest of any major hotel group. It genuinely makes ba.com look like Amazon. It is slowly improving but bugs are still there – it didn’t help when they started introducing letters into membership numbers, because some partners couldn’t handle non-numerical data. As I found last January, heaven help you if points arrive in the following year for a stay you did in late in the previous one ….

However, I know the scheme works well for many and is working for me

For the regular guest, Accor Live Limitless works well.  It is easier to earn Platinum, whether via nights or spend, than top tier in any competing programme (this is a fact – I’ve done the maths).  If you have a family and tend to book two rooms whilst travelling, you’re laughing – spend on both rooms will count for elite status.

Gleneagles Accor Live Limitless

Once you are Platinum, which is not the top tier but is the sweet spot, you are getting 8.8% of your room bill back in Accor vouchers.  Spend a few days in a Sofitel running up a £750 bill, before VAT, and you will ‘earn’ £66 for yourself – albeit £66 you need to spend in another Accor hotel. A Diamond member would get 10% back.

The benefits – for ‘sweet spot’ Platinum members – are also pretty decent at the right properties. At a Sofitel (such as Heathrow Terminal 5 pictured below) you will get lounge access (ie free breakfast, snacks and drinks), an upgrade, late check-out, early check-in AND 8.8% of your room bill back in vouchers.  You can’t complain about that.

The lack of free breakfast at hotels without a lounge is a negative. Even a Diamond only gets free breakfast at the weekend. (The Asia-Pacific breakfast rule is different – Platinum and Diamond members get free breakfast every day.)

The new ALL PLUS discount cards are a way of making elite status easier to earnsee here – by giving you free elite night credits. This doesn’t help people like me who earn status via spend, however.

There is little value in pushing for Diamond status if you are a regular Accor guest. The benefits above Platinum are few, with even the ‘free breakfast’ benefit restricted to weekends only. The key reason would be to guarantee an extra year of status because you’d get a soft landing to Platinum, and then Gold, if you didn’t renew.

Anecdotally, hotels seem to be good at delivering elite benefits.  You can’t ‘game’ elite status with Accor – it’s not given away free as a credit card perk – and the hotels know that status guests have earned it via ‘heads in beds’.

Suite Night Upgrades, which can now be booked online and are guaranteed when you book, are attractive. I used four at Fairmont St Andrews over New Year 2022/23, and ended up with my big suite being further upgraded to a frankly huge one. I used another two at Fairmont Windsor Park in December 2023, paying £500 per night for a suite selling for £1,000. Last year I used two at Raffles Europejski Warsaw. You start to earn these from 14,000 status points in a membership year.

Sofitel St James hotel

Accor looks after you if you don’t requalify

Accor is unique in having soft landings. Whilst normal in the airline world, it is rare in the hotel sector. If you don’t requalify for your status, you will only drop down by one level.

On 1st January 2025 I fell from Diamond to Platinum, whilst other chains would have dropped me back to the bottom tier. This is one reason to go for Diamond – because, including the soft landing year as Platinum, you will have two years of lounge access and upgrades.

(Marriott Bonvoy will offer soft landings in 2025 but it is not policy and you can’t rely on it for future years.)

What do we think of the network?

My experience of Accor properties in the last few years is not extensive. 90% of my spending was on three Fairmont stays at Barbados, St Andrews and Windsor Park and a couple of Sofitel Heathrow Terminal 5 trips.

However, the UK network is surprisingly good with Novotel and Mercure hotels in most major business cities.  The Sofitel St James in Mayfair (above) is a UK flagship and a decent place to spend your vouchers if you wanted a break in London, and you’ve obviously got The Savoy and Raffles Old War Office for a real splurge.

We have reviewed three new build UK Accor hotels in recent years and all were impressive. Novotel Blackfriars (review) has the new contemporary look being rolled out across the chain, and a swimming pool. The ibis Styles at Heathrow (review) showcases a new, modern design – despite “only being an ibis” I think any HfP reader would be happy there. Rhys enjoyed his stay at the new Municipal Hotel in Liverpool (MGallery, review here).

Whilst not reviewed, I enjoyed my stays at Mercure St Paul’s in Sheffield in 2019 and again in 2022.  Gleneagles, of course, is outstanding (review) but very expensive, as is the new Gleneagles Townhouse in Edinburgh (review) – but neither are part of the programme.  When I was in Dubai in 2020, we did one night at the new Sofitel The Obelisk near the airport which was exceptionally good.

The last international Accor hotels we reviewed were the brand new 25hours Copenhagen Paper Island (review), Grand Mercure Hanoi (review), Raffles Europejski Warsaw (review), AKI Hong Kong (MGallery, review), Fairmont Austin (review) and Fairmont Royal Pavilion Barbados (review).

Is Accor Live Limitless the best hotel loyalty scheme?

Conclusion

If Accor Live Limitless was a ‘normal’ loyalty scheme then the addition of Raffles, Fairmont, Gleneagles, Mondrian, Swissotel etc to bulk up the luxury portfolio would have been hugely exciting.  Imagine being able to redeem a handful of points for a night at The Savoy in London.

In reality, the revenue-based redemption model meant that these acquisitions were welcomed with little more than a shrug, since the number of points required for a free room is huge.  You get the same value per point as you’d get at an ibis, so there is no value blowing them at a luxury venue unless you happen to be there anyway.

The ability to earn Avios on every stay – on top of your Accor Live Limitless points – due to the Qatar Airways partnership is a decent perk. I don’t recommend converting Avios INTO Accor Live Limitless points due to the weak transfer rate.

All that said, it would be unfair to criticise the scheme too much, especially as it is currently working for me.  If you manage to earn ‘sweet spot’ Platinum status, stay in brands which have lounges (where you’d have free access), can take advantage of the Suite Night Upgrade vouchers and are happy to use your points for hotel room discounts or Accor Experiences events, it can work out well.

The Accor Live Limitless website is here if you want to find out more.


Accor Live Limitless update – February 2025:

Earn bonus Accor points: Accor is not currently running a global promotion

New to Accor Live Limitless?  Read our review of Accor Live Limitless here and our article on points expiry rules here. Our analysis of what Accor Live Limitless points are worth is here.

Want to earn more hotel points?  Click here to see our complete list of promotions from Accor and the other major hotel chains or use the ‘Hotel Offers’ link in the menu bar at the top of the page.

Comments (11)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • shanghaiguizi says:

    Do IHG also not do soft landings?

    I haven’t stayed in an IHG hotel for 4 years. Was diamond pre-covid, then got a one year extension, then last year dropped to gold, and just got an email saying I was silver for this year.

    • Rob says:

      They are at present but its not in the terms and conditions and you can’t rely on it.

  • Lumma says:

    I tend to find the equivalent Accor brand to be cheaper than other hotel chains, but as a standard member, I only tend to use them when they come up on a booking site like Hotels.com or booking.com as the member price will usually be cheaper and, as my account is set up to auto post to Iberia avios, I’ll pick up a handful of Iberia plus avios which will keep that account alive.

  • LDB says:

    Do you know why Gleneagles hasn’t been integrated and are there any plans to? Also – from experiences – what are the status upgrades like? The website suggests single category upgrade which would be less than top tier status with other groups.

  • direttore says:

    Nobody ever mentions it, but TRIBE in Canary Wharf is also a far nicer place than it should be for the price (even if the standard rooms are tiny). All room spend counts towards Accor status.

    £20 day-pass access to the Third Space above, a bar with stools that stays open til midnight for the solo traveller and 1 stop on Elizabeth Line to ExCel.

    • Rob says:

      We’re trying TRIBE at MAN next week as it happens.

    • Stuart says:

      Stayed in the TRIBE Canary Wharf a couple of times. Nice enough but there are only three room types, and stayed in both Essential type room – they are very tiny, even as a solo traveller with only a backpack for baggage it was a squeeze.

    • Dubious says:

      I’ve stayed at a TRIBE, but not in the UK. Although nice (and new) they are not setup for business travel. Small perch of a desk and stool rather than chair. The expectation seems to be to work in a communal area which, at that hotel was either the noisy bar, or the noisy cafe…(or pay extra to rent a meeting/conference room).

  • Pangolin says:

    If you ever have stays at the limited service properties like the Ibis brands, this is where it makes the most sense to redeem points instead of using cash, as the earning rate is going to be 50% lower than for the other brands but the redemption value is the same fixed €20 for 1000 points as for everywhere else.

  • James says:

    Any status matched?

  • Du Ri says:

    As a Accor Diamond Member since its inception in 2019 I believe it does have some issues (agreed mostly in IT) and its Accor website differencial between website and app has issues with added or adding taxes that cause price problems.
    But the 2nd Room as benefit is exceptional (even once had 3 rooms via GM) when we take over Grandkids to Asia etc.
    Providing a free Gold membership to family or friends has also been worthwhile
    Most of our spend is in Asia or Middle East where we spend around 180 days per year (spending the kids inheritance and staying out of UK) where we receive exceptional benefits from hotel GM’s outwith suite night upgrades…4 Bed Presidential BEACH Villa with massive pool/ breakfast/free drinks/6 pieces of laundry/ afternoon tea/ BBQ evening for £300 a night for SIX persons for 10nights would be the highlight so far but had some other fantastic Beach Villa/ Hotel suite stays/ deals without using upgrades.
    We DO spend the money as have achieved Double Diamond in 2024 (£25000+ spend) and nearly did it in 2023…spend £20+K
    Last year we also achieved Gold in all THREE airline alliances but sadly that is now over.
    We agreed we fly Business Class from Aberdeen Scotland 10 years ago so easily achievable but always on lookout for special flight prices.
    Back to ALL Accor even with all the repeated spend still waiting to be invited to the ALL Accor Black Limitless which is by invitation only….so will stick it out for another few years but as also have Amex Platinum and therefore Gold etc with other chains its maybe time to look elsewhere…writing this from JW Marriott Ritz Carlton Kuala Lumpur…but this is part of 5 day stay as part of BA Hols to achieve Gold again before March!
    For those looking to achieve Diamond ….go for it , you only live once and once attained is well worth the effort, but you also need to make the effort to network with GM’s and Operation Managers etc once you arrivein any hotel you wish to return to later

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