I previously interviewed Aaron Glick, at the time he was VP for Hilton Honors. I received word that he is moving on to another position at a different company on the west coast outside of the industry.
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Program Earning
The Honors program had some of the best promotions I have seen from the brand in years while Aaron was at the helm. Earnings potential for everyday members in their first promo of the year, 2k Every Stay, Every Day were huge when compared to previous incentives.
In the second quarter he introduced as much as triple points for top-tier Diamonds, and double points for Gold members. This addressed a concern I had addressed in a post about Hyatt’s promotion.
Added Features
One thing that he and his team discussed with me at the Freddies was the experiential program benefits they had added. While he was quick to add that he did not want to discuss SPG (his former employer) and wanted to focus on what Hilton was doing, their program which is similar to SPG Moments was a welcome addition to the Hilton Honors program. They teamed up with One Direction (and others) to offer unique, once-in-a-lifetime experiences to their guests.
Adding experiences to the fold makes the program more valuable to me than it was before. I switched from earning miles and points to just points so that I could take advantage of these offers. Hopefully, nothing will change after Mr. Glick’s departure on this front.
Replacement
At this time, no replacement has been named as of yet for the post. Mr. Glick’s last day with the brand will be August 25th. While Hyatt’s position for World of Hyatt is also open, there seems to be options for loyalty brand managers that want to make a move. I wonder if one particular loyalty brand executive will get a call from Hilton…
Jeff did such a good job at Hyatt #SaidNoOneEver
I loved the Gold Passport program up until the World of Hyatt change. Does Mr. Zidell get credit for running a great program for however many years, or disapproval because of the death of Gold Passport? We’re either of them his doing?
Definitely disagree. He did a good job there and no one outside of Hyatt executives knows if he was responsible for what the World of Hyatt became.
So, I say he did a good job at Hyatt. 🙂
I personally see Hilton’s challenges less about the attractiveness/benefits of H-Honors but rather the thin portfolio of (1) aspirational / luxury hotels and (2) high quality independent hotels under the Curio collection.
The Canopy concept is a good start for the “lifestyle” / “millenial” brand but they gotta ramp it up quickly.
I agree that they are renovating the brand a little to appeal to the younger generation. However, those changes were outside of Honors and thus outside of Mr. Glick’s purview.
I relinquish my crown to you.
I’m intrigued Brian as to which crown you speak of.
I was just having some fun with you, Kyle; but is there a way we can communicate privately?
My e-mail address should be available to you…
I was fired by Hilton Grand Vacations after 10 years of loyal service for writing a letter suggesting improvements to the Hilton Honors program for Hilton Grand Vacation owners. If the Hilton Grand Vacation owners had a higher conversion rate for their HGV points they would use the hotels more filling empty room and creating a need to buy more HGV points. That would be a win win for both sides even though they are separate companies. HHonors is really missing out by not making the program more attractive to
HGV owners.
I wasn’t impressed with HGV so I didn’t pursue it much, it does seem like they could do more to make those two programs more attractive to the other’s members.
One change I’d really like to see Hilton make is how they price upgraded room awards. At present even a small upgrade in room requires an outsize increase in point spend. And using points and dollars doesn’t fix the problem either because the basis becomes the higher point total. For example at one hotel in Paris the standard award is 60000 points per night. Or 209 Euros. The next room up the chain is 224 Euros but now the rate is 104000 points. So you would think for 60k and 15 Euros I could book that higher category room but you would be wrong.
YES! I completely agree and it should be really easy for the new VP of Honors to make that work. They already have the monetization tool in place, it shouldn’t be difficult for them to implement.