Home Community General Travel Hotels & Accomodation Accor Le Club Status Point expiry question

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  • #3692
    Kiwimac
    Participant

    I’m currently at 85% of the points I need to get Platinum status in Accor Le Club.

    I cannot quite work out whether those points will reset to zero at 31 December or carry over. Accor confirmed I have more than enough to retain Gold, but I am trying to decide whether to find excuses to stay in hotels between now and the end of the year to get to Platinum, since I am so close, or whether there would be no need.

    The wording is a bit ambiguous on their website and says

    “Status points and nights earned at the end of an eligible stay or after payment of an event (in the context of the Meeting Planner offer) are valid until the 31st December included, following the date of check-out.

    Rewards points are valid for 12 months after your check-out date.

    This validity period is extended by 365 days each time a stay/event resulting a credit of Status points is recorded on your account. Stays fully stelled by Rewards points also enable to extend the validity period of the Rewards points by 365 days after the check out date of the hotel.”

     

    The first para suggests all status points expire at 31 December. Then the third para says: “This validity period is extended by 365 days each time a stay/event resulting a credit of Status points is recorded on your account.”

    But that could be read to mean that it only applies to Rewards Points…or not.

     

    Thoughts? Accor CS are a PITA to deal with so I thought I would ask here first!

    #3693
    Adam Jobbins
    Keymaster

    It’s badly worded, I read that as them saying that crediting of status points extends the validity if reward points by 365 days, but the status points themselves expire 31 Dec of the year they were earned. Otherwise, as long as you stayed somewhere at least once every 365 days, your status points balance would never decrease and only increase.

    I think you’d need to hit platinum by 31 Dec. Not sure about Accor, but some loyalty programs will grant or comp a tier upgrade if you’re very close to the required level and you have forward bookings. May be worth asking if you don’t quite get there.

    #3696
    Kiwimac
    Participant

    Yes, that is more or less what I thought but as you say, it’s not well worded.

    There is not actually a huge difference between Gold and Platinum in Accor, aside from the fact that you can get early check in AND late check out not either or and you get access to the Club lounge regardless of the room you book.

    However, NZ hotels do not seem to have Club facilities for some reason, so that last benefit is really only useful in SE Asia where almost all Sofitels do (and very nice ones at that) and some of the Australian ones do (Sofitel Sydney Wentworth has a really nice one).

    I suppose also if there are limited rooms available for status upgrades when you stay, Platinum members will get first dibs.

    #3705
    Kiwiwings
    Participant

    The way I read it is that status points expire at the end of a calendar year and will reset to zero.

     

    Reward points expire if you don’t have a stay 12 months from your last stay. So they are rolling.

     

    Where I get a bit confused is with Accor plus – the paid membership programme where you can sign up at any time and your membership starts from then. But you also have your Accor year. I currently have a platinum card with expiry in May so I’m not really sure how the status points expiry works e.g. calendar yr vs membership.

     

     

     

     

     

     

    #3712
    floydbloke
    Participant

    … Reward points expire if you don’t have a stay 12 months from your last stay. So they are rolling. …

    It does seem you can spend them beyond that period though.  My last stay was in July this year and I had not future bookings.  I was able to spend 6000 points to pre-pay for a stay (+ $7 I had to top up) in October 2018.

    #3713
    Kiwimac
    Participant

    It’s not the most straightforward system – or, according to other posts elsewhere, the most generous. For example, I have read that Hilton, SPG etc often have free breakfast once you get to the upper status tiers and in a country where we can be charged as much as $45 for breakfast at an hotel, free breakfast would be a great loyalty benefit. Sadly of course in Australasia we do not have an over-abundance of Hiltons and SPG, Marriot and so on.

    One reason they may not do this is to avoid cutting across Accor Plus which offers dining discounts. However, I personally suspect the time has come to cease running two similar but different programs and merge them somehow.

     

    As an aside, there is an internet booking deal on at the Sofitel (at least, in Wellington, not sure if it is countrywide) where you can get breakfast added on for just $1!)

    #3731
    Kiwiwings
    Participant
    … Reward points expire if you don’t have a stay 12 months from your last stay. So they are rolling. …

    It does seem you can spend them beyond that period though. My last stay was in July this year and I had not future bookings. I was able to spend 6000 points to pre-pay for a stay (+ $7 I had to top up) in October 2018.

    Yes I think that’s how the majority of the loyalty programs work. You have to at least have ‘applied’ the points within the time frame for expiry e.g. 12 months from earning. Effectively though you’ll have ~ 2yrs to use them as a number of booking systems are ~ 12 months in advance.

    Where you may get caught out is if you cancelled your Oct 2018 booking say in August 2018 without any stays from when you last earned in July 2017 until July 2018 then your points would not credit back to your account as they would have expired. I generally try to read the rules from the most straight forward perspective. I only get into tricks if I’ve read someone else has been successful. If I get it wrong then I may be shedding a few tears.

     

    It’s not the most straightforward system – or, according to other posts elsewhere, the most generous. For example, I have read that Hilton, SPG etc often have free breakfast once you get to the upper status tiers and in a country where we can be charged as much as $45 for breakfast at an hotel, free breakfast would be a great loyalty benefit. Sadly of course in Australasia we do not have an over-abundance of Hiltons and SPG, Marriot and so on. One reason they may not do this is to avoid cutting across Accor Plus which offers dining discounts. However, I personally suspect the time has come to cease running two similar but different programs and merge them somehow. As an aside, there is an internet booking deal on at the Sofitel (at least, in Wellington, not sure if it is countrywide) where you can get breakfast added on for just $1!)

    I think you’re right in that they don’t want to affect the A+ programme by offering breakfast etc as a benefit. One of the main gripes with the Accor programme is that they are very inconsistent and at times quite bad at offering the stated benefits (upgrades in particular) but, yes their footprint is much better in these parts than SPG/HH.

     

    I will say St Moritz Queenstown really blitzed it with all the benefits being offered.

    #3869
    Kiwimac
    Participant

    Well, I squeaked in before the 31st so get Platinum status now until 31 December 2018.

    SO now the trek begins to keep it…!

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