Hotel chains usually adjust categories once a year and the usual norm is for them to give members a lead period before the changes come into effect.  Categories changes usually determine how many points are required for reward redemption at a particular hotel property and will directly affect anyone who is planning a redemption.

For example SPG and Marriott announced their hotel category changes that will come into effect from March 7, 2017 were announced all the way up in the first week of February this year.

Earlier this week, Club Carlson has announced an instant category change for its hotels with a less than 24 hour notice. These changes that were come into effect from March 1, 2017, so literally you have no time to make a reservation at a hotel that is moving upwards.

Club Carlson operates over a 1,000 hotels worldwide under 7 brands and this time around 20 hotels are changing categories. 13 of which are going up in category and 7 are coming down, also almost 50% of the hotels changing categories belong to the Radisson Blue portfolio.

The India Impact

The Carlson Rezidor group has a great footprint of hotels across various geographies. In India itself it is spread across 78 cities. It is perhaps the only global chain hotel you will find in cities like Indore, Lucknow, Salem and Ranchi. In this year of category changes a total of 9 hotels across Asia will change categories and out of these are 6 Indian hotels, all of which are moving up by a category.

In that sense India will become more expensive for redemptions. Also, it’s worth noting that all 4 of Carlson Rezidor hotels in Goa are climbing up the ladder.

Although the overall impact is only on 2% of hotels worldwide, I’m quite disappointed at the fact that Carlson Rezidor Group did not think it was important to give  Club Carlson members any notice before the changes kicked in.

What do you think about these changes? Have any hotels that you were eyeing gone up in the reward chart?