Why is that some sort major news always happens on the day that we are not in the office! I mean we did tweet about this via our FFBonuses twitter account the minute we saw the email from Fairmont announcing this and that tweet surprised a lot of people but of course we couldn’t write about it yesterday. The news is France’s Accor Hotels has agreed to buy FRHI (Fairmont Raffles Hotels Inc) which includes Fairmont Hotels, Raffles Hotels and Swissotel for US$2.9 billion.
As with any consolidation nothing changes now as it takes time to integrate the companies but word is the deal and integration should be ready later in 2016 around the same time that Marriott and Starwood finalize everything. I would wager a guess that the hotel brands will remain (Fairmont, Raffles, Swissotel) as they are each iconic in their own right however we will more than likely see the end of our beloved Fairmont President’s Club to only be rolled in Accor’s Le Club accorhotels program. The two programs are very different and President’s Club is well known here in Canada while Le Club not as much. Surprisingly both are part of the benefits package of The Platinum Card from American Express, you get automatic Platinum status with Le Club and the accelerated offer to Platinum with Fairmont. So best guess is that the accelerated offer will not be around in 2017.
Overall the feeling isn’t great with many as Fairmont President’s Club fills a niche and treats its members very well, less can be said about Le Club accorhotels.
While it is too early to speculate exactly what will happen if and when the reward programs amalgamate we can almost guarantee it won’t be good for Fairmont President’s Club members.
I know we have lots of Fairmont President’s Club members who visit Rewards Canada and follow us on social media so we’d love to hear your thoughts on this news!!