I used to stay in hotels more then I currently do and while I don’t have as many room nights as I used to I still travel some and maintain membership in my favorite hotel brands loyalty programs. One of these is the Hilton Honors program. On my last trip I was in 
search of a hotel and the billboards for the Hampton Inn kept speaking to me. So when it was time to stop I sought out an exit with a Hampton Inn. As I was checking in I presented my Hilton Honors membership number and told it was no longer valid. I inquired as to why stating that my Marriott nor Holiday Inn memberships never expire. The lady said that they just do. Since I was there I decided to stay instead of seek out another hotel. Somewhat surprising the evening desk person at this time never offered to sign me back up for the program during the check in process. Once settled into my room I tweeted about this and I have to give Hampton Inn credit that they responded to my tweet the next day. Simply saying they would refer it to their customer relationship group. Once I returned home I even received an e-mail survey from Hampton asking about my recent stay with them. I expressed the same concern there as I am here so it will be interesting if I get a response. Typically I wouldn’t expect a response from a survey but with how they responded to my tweet I have a little higher expectation. They never asked for or confirmed my e-mail during the check in process. So I guess I am important enough as a customer for them to keep my information but not important enough for them to be part of the Hilton Honors program.
Maybe I am not their target guest because I don’t stay enough with them. What is the cost to them to keep me part of their program? They still have my information and I never receive mail from them, just an occasional e-mail. I think they have a greater cost to not keep me in their program because now I will remove them from consideration when I need to stay in a hotel or to host an event. For a company this size I would think it would be more cost effective to keep customers in their programs which seems to be the standard of others in the industry.
