ALL Signature versus UK gift cards

[planeconcorde]

Has anybody worked out if the Accor All Signature black Friday offer is a better deal compared with the UK offer of 15% extra on gift cards?

All Signature:
https://all.accor.com/a/pt-br/loyalty-program/subscription-program/all-signature.html

UK Gift cards (GBP or EUR)
https://www.accor-giftcards.com/shop

I don’t travel to Brazil so the extra All Signature benefits will have no value. Just interested in earning the status points to reach Platinum status tier and then use the points for stays. Verses buying gift cards to get 15% extra value. The last few years I have just been staying enough in UK and Europe hotels to retain gold on nights. I don’t spend enough to earn the gold on status points.

[kai]

40% off v.s. 15% bonus, hardly a comparison.

[planeconcorde]

kai wrote:

40% off v.s. 15% bonus, hardly a comparison.

Thanks kai.

have investigated further and now found the page where All Signature is explained in English.

I think the situation is as follows:

The Absolute tier costs R$ 6,720 (Brazilian Real) per year, which is 1,057.73 EUR
The Black Friday deal claims to give 15% off the annual price, so only 899 EUR to purchase by 2nd December 2024. But I haven’t clicked through to verify that.)
That will get 75,000 points per year (5,000 * 12) + (5,000 * 3 for the bouns every 4 months)
75,000 point are worth 1,500 EUR when spent at Hotels in countries using the Euro currency.
So thats a return of 442.27 EUR on the purchase price, which is 41%

Anybody see any flaws in this calculation?
Otherwise its very interesting.

[planeconcorde]

planeconcorde wrote:

kai wrote:

40% off v.s. 15% bonus, hardly a comparison.

Thanks kai.

have investigated further and now found the page where All Signature is explained in English.

I think the situation is as follows:

The Absolute tier costs R$ 6,720 (Brazilian Real) per year, which is 1,057.73 EUR
The Black Friday deal claims to give 15% off the annual price, so only 899 EUR to purchase by 2nd December 2024. But I haven’t clicked through to verify that.)
That will get 75,000 points per year (5,000 * 12) + (5,000 * 3 for the bouns every 4 months)
75,000 point are worth 1,500 EUR when spent at Hotels in countries using the Euro currency.
So thats a return of 442.27 EUR on the purchase price, which is 41%

Anybody see any flaws in this calculation?
Otherwise its very interesting.

A few additional thoughts:
– Can only use gift cards on pay on departure (Flexible) rates.
– with gift cards the possibility of double dip with cash back on the whole booking, but depends on whether the transaction tracks.
– Buy points, then don’t earn points from the stay. This wasn’t factored into the my calculation.

[Man of Kent]

@planeconcorde – I’ve booked a couple of Accor stays in the last 12 months through eStore and they both tracked and paid OK. One of them was a very early booking too.

[Guernsey Globetrotter]

I find the Accor e-store tracks OK initially but that Accor sometimes subsequently reject the credit for spurious reasons.

On the All Signature front, what also should be mentioned is the significant status benefit that can accompany the points subscription, as you also receive 1,000 Accor status points per month (with the annual sub).

You only need 7,000 to get Gold, which gives you decent benefits (upgrade and free drinks vouchers etc.). Platinum level, which adds lounge access and suite night awards, needs 14,000. The subscription gives you up to 12,000 status points per annum (depending on when you sign up) so you can then hit Platinum for a relatively modest additional spend (€400 per 1,000 status points).

[BBbetter]

Has the price of Signature stayed the same?
Looks like BRL has depreciated 23% over the year, so that’s another saving!

Personally, am interested, but sitting on a bunch of IHG and Hilton points and still holding Plat card that gives good value at Meliá, therefore will skip Signature this time.

[kevinchoi]

The other caveat if using All Signature to gain Platinum status is the timings of the status points. If you sign up to it now (taking advantage of the Black Friday deal), then I assume the first 1000 bonus points get credited on Day 1, and then the second lot a month later – which means that these will count towards the 2024 goal. And then your Status Points will drop to 0 at the start of 2025, so you will only get 10,000 status points that year, which leaves you 4000 short of Platinum

[BBbetter]

kevinchoi wrote:

The other caveat if using All Signature to gain Platinum status is the timings of the status points. If you sign up to it now (taking advantage of the Black Friday deal), then I assume the first 1000 bonus points get credited on Day 1, and then the second lot a month later – which means that these will count towards the 2024 goal. And then your Status Points will drop to 0 at the start of 2025, so you will only get 10,000 status points that year, which leaves you 4000 short of Platinum

The offer ends on 2nd Dec. Therefore 1st Dec is probably the best to signup for the black friday discount.

[kevinchoi]

BBbetter wrote:

The offer ends on 2nd Dec. Therefore 1st Dec is probably the best to signup for the black friday discount.

Bingo. That’s what I’m planning to do.

[smitrax]

Had never heard of this before so thanks for bringing to my attention.

[Rob]

I am also looking to do this on 1st December, since I’ve got Plat for 2025 anyway as a soft landing from Diamond.

You WILL make savings although less than 40% due to no points earned and the loss of any cashback credits on your booking. The real value is easy access to Platinum which benefits you on all stays, including two Suite Night Upgrade awards when you earn Platinum (valid for one night per voucher).

Here’s the other thing.

The worse case scenario is that you don’t use the points for stays and transfer to Iberia Avios at 1:1. You’ve got 75,000 Avios for €900, so roughly £750. As a ‘worse case’ scenario this isn’t a bad one.

[kevinchoi]

The other good thing about having reward points is to redeem it for Limitless Experiences.

However, there does seem to be a reduction of UK-based experiences…

Accor doesn’t sponsor Taste of London since 2023
It doesn’t sponsor BST Hyde Park from 2025
And it doesn’t sponsor Eventim Apollo since 2023 either (I used to love these redemptions as they were the best seats in the house for a really good price)

I thought I’ve read an article on HfP earlier this year that there might be another UK-based partnership in the works, but I haven’t heard anything since?

[Rob]

Yes, they were about to sign a suite at another UK venue – and then it went quiet.

When I went to BST 2024 I was told that discussions were still ongoing for 2025. The organisers of BST are the same people who run the venue Accor was talking to ….

No idea what is going on now, but they need to do SOMETHING ….

[smitrax]

Signed up this morning and the first 5k have landed in my account.

Think this is one of the better Black Friday deals out there so thanks again for flagging it.

[Olly]

Apologies if I’m missing something, but why wouldn’t one sign up for the monthly ‘Absolute’ plan rather than the annual one, so as to save 50% on the costs rather than 15%? Obvs there is some exchange rate risk but this is more than offset by the additional savings, and it appears that the benefits in terms of the points earned are identical

Edit: To answer my own question, it appears that the discount code is only applicable to the first transaction

[Olly]

Anyone have difficulty in getting it to accept a UK based card? Tried 2 debits and 1 credit and it wasn’t having any of them

[kevinchoi]

Olly wrote:

Anyone have difficulty in getting it to accept a UK based card? Tried 2 debits and 1 credit and it wasn’t having any of them

I used my NatWest credit card (the one with 0 FX fees) and it went through fine

[Rob]

Amusingly, it seems it has hit its enrollment cap in the last 24 hours because I can’t sign up, and looking at online reports neither can anyone else!

Should have done it yesterday but slipped my mind.

[planeconcorde]

Rob Burgess wrote:

Amusingly, it seems it has hit its enrollment cap in the last 24 hours because I can’t sign up, and looking at online reports neither can anyone else!

Should have done it yesterday but slipped my mind.

Unfortunately, you aren’t the only person to miss out. Having decided to go for it, based on the comments in this thread, I wanted to make sure the transaction was recorded as in December. But wasn’t should which “midnight” was important. Either France, UK or Brazil.

I couldn’t get the offer code to work Sunday early afternoon UK time. I have tried again since then just in case the situation changed, but it hasn’t.

[KevinC]

I must have been lucky because I enrolled on Sunday morning. It wouldn’t accept Curve but took the next card I tried. I hope the offer comes around again soon for those who missed out.

A question for the All Signature experts. I know that I won’t get reward points if I pay for a room with points. Does that also mean you don’t get status points for that stay?

[kevinchoi]

KevinC wrote:

I know that I won’t get reward points if I pay for a room with points. Does that also mean you don’t get status points for that stay?

When you pay using points, you can pay in chunks of 2000 points (ie 40 euros). You’ll earn status points on the remaining cash component that you paid for. Or at least I did in my experience.

[BBbetter]

kevinchoi wrote:

KevinC wrote:

I know that I won’t get reward points if I pay for a room with points. Does that also mean you don’t get status points for that stay?

When you pay using points, you can pay in chunks of 2000 points (ie 40 euros). You’ll earn status points on the remaining cash component that you paid for. Or at least I did in my experience.

As long as the remaining cash component is not taxes.