Club ITC claims the Best Promotion award honor becoming the fifth different winner in the past six Freddie Awards in this category. Club ITC also earned this award with the highest rating for the award across all other regions with a 9.01 final rating. The secret to their win? Appealing to the need for status: Members were able to earn status by staying one-third fewer nights or one-third less revenue in 2021. Silver status was earned after just 4 nights or INR 40,000 revenue, while Platinum required just 20 nights or INR 200,000 revenue. Right behind them were other great promotions including #2 Accor ALL with their activation booster: Members could earn up to €120 in points, with 1 to 3 stays of 2 nights or more booked between September 23 and November 4 for stays through December 31 earning up to 6,000 Reward points (This promotion finished #2 in Europe) and #3 Marriott Bonvoy with their Better Two-gether promotion: Earn an unlimited amount of double bonus points for stays of two nights or longer at more than 7,500 participating properties and double elite night credits making elite status much faster to achieve especially when combined with Marriott Bonvoy cobranded credit cards, between February 16 – April 27, 2021 (This promotion finished #2 in the Americas). After Marriott, the promotion ratings fall sharply with the next seven promotions all rated within a .75 point variance.
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Best Promotion – Hotels (Middle East & Asia/Oceania)
This category win by Club ITC is but one of four this year for this program and Best Elite along with Program of the Year certainly puts them in the #admired category itself. As in many other categories this year, the three highest-rated programs remain the same with Accor ALL and Marriott Bonvoy following right behind. Club ITC does become the fourth winner in this category in the past four Freddie Awards with Marriott, Hyatt, and Starwood being the previous three winners. And yes, you read this correctly, Hyatt won the Best Elite award in 2019 … this year they finished in ninth place with a rating over 2.5 points off of the 9.05 rating that Club ITC earned the award with. Regional programs from Taj, Shangri-La, and GHA are bunched right behind the top three with IHG, Hyatt, and Hilton not faring well in this region where service and status matter most.
TRIVIA: ITC Hotels has a franchise agreement to operate most of its hotels as part of The Luxury Collection of Marriott International. It is a smaller chain of only about 100 hotels and in case you’ve ever wondered … “ITC” stands for Imperial Tobacco Company.
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Best Elite Program – Hotels (Middle East & Asia/Oceania)
In somewhat of a coming-out party, Club ITC wins the biggest prize of the year with this Program of the Year honor that perfectly goes along with three other Freddie Awards they have won in 2022. Their winning rating of 9.05 matches exactly that of the same rating for their Best Elite award as well. Club ITC becomes the fourth program to win this award in the past five Freddie Awards with the only repeat being IHG which won in both 2018 and 2019. This category also features the same top three finishers as in four other categories with Club ITC, Accor ALL, and Marriott Bonvoy all displaying their consistencies. As mentioned, IHG won this award in 2019, 2018, and 2013 but this year could do no better than a #6 finish, 2.5 points off the rating of winner Club ITC. And what of other past winners? Hyatt who won in 2014 could do no better than a #10 finish with a rating of 6.30. We’d rather see a program consistently in the top-five year after year and perhaps not even winning the award than to see a program seesaw up and down through the top ten. But then … that’s just us thinking out loud.
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Program of the Year – Hotels (Middle East & Asia/Oceania)
