It’s tough to be true to a hotel chain, even if there’s a reward

It’s a simple concept that no one should lose sleep over: Stay at a hotel. Earn frequent guest points. Exchange them for more stays.

Just like the airlines, with points instead of miles, right?

The problem, researchers say, is that surprisingly few of us know which hotels are covered by our frequent-stay cards, so we miss out on earning hundreds, even thousands, of points. Blame it on poor communication by the companies or the sheer numbers of brands, they say.

It pays to spend a few minutes on the computer to research your card.

“It’s somewhat shocking and disturbing that frequent-guest program members don’t know the benefits they’re entitled to,” said Robert Mandelbaum, director of research information services for Atlanta’s PKF Consulting, an international firm of consultants and specialists in the hotel and tourism industries.

Mandelbaum was reacting to results of a survey released last month by Phoenix Marketing International, a Rhinebeck, N.Y.-based marketing services firm. It surveyed nearly 4,000 participants in more than a dozen frequent-stay programs.

When presented with a list of hotel brands, not one Hilton HHonors, Radisson Gold Rewards or Starwood Preferred Guest member in the survey could correctly identify all the brands covered by the program he or she belonged to, said Greg Diaz, vice president of Phoenix Marketing’s travel research group.

A total of 1,904 Hilton, 453 Radisson and 1,035 Starwood frequent guests participated in the study.

Diaz blamed marketing missteps for the widespread ignorance.

“You need to communicate all the brands in your program,” he said.

Bolstering his claim: In his survey, more than two-thirds of frequent guests at Choice Hotels International, which prominently posts its brands in advertising and on the Internet, correctly identified the six chains in its program: Clarion, Comfort Inn, Comfort Suites, MainStay Suites, Quality Inn and Sleep Inn.

Carlson Hotels Worldwide, which runs Radisson Hotels & Resorts, forgoes cross-selling the four brands in its frequent-guest program so it can focus on each brand’s identity, said Yvonne La Penotiere, executive vice president of brand marketing.

The large number of chains, especially smaller, more obscure ones, is also part of the industry’s problem, Diaz said.

The low-scoring Hilton, Radisson and Starwood frequent-guest programs together cover more than 20 brands.

“There’s no question there’s been a tremendous proliferation of brand names,” said Marc Grossman, senior vice president for corporate affairs at Hilton Hotels Corp. “The industry has gotten kind of crazy. You don’t just have extended-stay hotels. You have upscale extended stay, midpriced extended stay.... The bologna gets sliced pretty thin.”

But Grossman defended Hilton’s brands and the marketing of its frequent-guest program, which dates to 1987 and operates in nine chains, including vacation-ownership properties. (Starwood did not respond to requests for comment on the survey results.)

Grossman said it was no accident that Hilton HHonors members accounted for about 40% of hotel guests companywide.

“Clearly, there’s a lot of recognition and acceptance,” he said. “Most of our customers ‘get it.’ ”

Not me, I confessed. In my mind, I had lumped the company’s Hampton Inns and Hampton Inn & Suites and Hilton Garden Inns in the same vague category: limited-service budget hotels.

Grossman set me straight: The two Hampton brands have an average room rate of $79, limited meeting space and limited food service. Hilton Garden Inns have an average room rate of $96 and more food service and meeting rooms. Hampton Inn & Suites offer a mix of regular rooms and suites; Hampton Inns offer just rooms.

It wasn’t always this complicated. Just a handful of chains breezed past our car windows on vacations in the 1960s and 1970s.

Then came the 1980s, when tax breaks set off a construction boom in the U.S. lodging industry. The challenge: how to open three or four Holiday Inns or Marriotts in the same town without cannibalizing the business. The solution: Target different kinds of customers.

“If they run out of brands, they have to invent one, so they can build a new hotel,” PKF’s Mandelbaum said.

Hoteliers said they create brands to better serve distinct groups, from free-spending, well-heeled vacationers to penny-pinching business travelers.

The tax break and the boom faded in the 1990s, but the multi-chain legacy remains. Through mergers, brands are traded from owner to owner like ballplayers.

Even more confusing, some brands don’t make a company’s frequent-stay roster.

Marriott International Inc. franchises some Ramada International Hotels & Resorts, but its Marriott Rewards program omits Ramada, which has its own loyalty program. You can redeem Marriott Rewards points at Ritz-Carltons, but you cannot earn them there. Choice Hotels’ Econo Lodges and Rodeway Inns have their own frequent-stay programs.

What loyal guest can keep up with this?

As business picks up, new brands pop up. Among the latest: Hotel Indigo, by InterContinental Hotels Group, which is to make its debut in Atlanta by the end of this year.

Indigo is aimed at “middle-market consumers who are ‘trading up’ to higher levels of quality and taste but still seeking value” and “desire an experience as much as a destination,” Richard North, chief executive of the parent company, said in a recent news release.

I can’t quite wrap my mind around that concept, but I understand this one: Indigo will have rates averaging $100 a night.

Now there’s a niche I can relate to.

Hear more tips from Jane Engle on this Travel Insider topic at www.latimes.com/engle. She welcomes comments but can’t respond individually to letters and calls. Write Travel Insider, Los Angeles Times, 202 W. 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90012, or e-mail jane.engle@latimes.com.