2011 COLLOQUY Loyalty Awards
Best Western 
Award: Loyalty Innovation in Travel/Hospitality (North America)
Initiative: Status Match...No Catch®
While many hotel brands were devaluing points in their loyalty programs to weather a tough economy, one hotel chain stood strong. Best Western not only kept its doors open to full reward redemption, it widened them and welcomed all travelers to redeem their points from competing hotel brands with a program called Status Match...No Catch®.
A true first for the hospitality business. This groundbreaking initiative allowed new Best Western Rewards members to automatically attain the elite status they worked so hard to earn with a competing hotel brand, thereby eliminating the entry barrier inherent in most frequency based rewards system.
New members could take advantage of one of the most generous rewards programs, plus extra special services including: best available rooms, early check-in/late check-out, dedicated service, 250 bonus points with every stay, and more. Awareness about how easy it was to switch spread via a national marketing campaign, public relations push, direct marketing, and outreach by the properties' sales teams.
Results: Since announcing the offering, Status Match... No Catch® generated close to 5,000 additional new Best Western Rewards members and led to 37,000 room nights and $3.4M in revenue.... a success so buzz-worthy it's been covered by USAToday.com's "Hotel Check-In" Blog, Webflyer, Hotel Chatter, Smarter Travel, HOTELS, HotelInteractive.com and more.
See Best Western's award entry.
See COLLOQUY's September 2011 issue for more on 2011 COLLOQUY Loyalty Award winners and finalists.
