Recently my wife and I each bought an Accor Advantage Plus membership for SGD$288 lasting for a year. Each membership comes with 2 complimentary nights at participating Accor group hotels in Asia Pacific. In addition, the member also enjoys dining discounts, such as getting a whopping 50% discount when dining in a party of 2. I would say it is quite good for couples travelling together.
We bought the memberships with the intention of staying 4 nights in Japan. However, there is a rule restricting a member to only using a single complimentary night per stay. A stay is defined as the entire duration from a customer checks in until the customer checks out. A quick check with the Accor membership salesperson reveals that it is perfectly okay to book 2 consecutive nights using a different name each night. However, 4 consecutive nights would be breaking their T&Cs.; The way around this is to stay 2 complimentary nights, and then stay elsewhere, and finally return to stay the remaining 2 complimentary nights. Works fine with me and hence immediately I bought 2 memberships without hesitation.
Upon acquiring the membership, I promptly logged in to book my intended complimentary nights. However, I found out that each hotel has a quota for such complimentary nights and they tend to be taken up quite readily in the more popular hotels. Secondly, these free nights only apply to the cheapest room category and in Japan, the cheapest category is single occupation. For example at Mercure Ginza, you may have to pay an additional 3000Yen to check in 2 adults per room even though the rooms for single and double occupation are essentially the same. By and large of all the countries I have been to, Japan is the only country with hotels that have separate room rates for single occupation. Something to take note if you intend to use your complimentary nights in Japan.
One Comment
Interesting way by the Japs.
Recently I just booked my 2nites in SG coz dateline is 31 Jan 2010. I booked into Feb coz Jan no available rooms on Sat liao. Then I "chu" pattern and call the Mercure Roxy hotel to change to Jan coz I can't make it in Feb.
Hehe lucky they allow me to change but for this once only. =)