buying top tier priority club status for just 120$ a year

i heard about the changes to priority club on one of my favorite blogs, view from the wing, and went to go check it out.

priority club is the reward program of the intercontinental hotel group. these include hotel chains like the intercontinental, holiday inn, crowne plaza, and hotel indigo. it used to be the easiest hotel chain in the world to earn elite status with. staying 15 nights, but more importantly, earning just 20,000 points in a year, would have gotten gold status. platinum status, with probable room upgrades, required 50 nights or 60,000 points in a year. and as with all the programs, if you're able to concentrate your hotel stays into one program, it's best to do so in order to gain status. status confers benefits.

it used to be the easiest program to get status in (which i value just to get no-contest late check out). i didn't even have to stay at any hotels because any point earned would count towards status. last year, i earned status via the topguest program which would give me 50 points daily by checking in every morning on foursquare. it was easy for me because i live approximately 182 meters away from a holiday inn. starting this year, they closed up the loophole to make only certain points count towards status.

so i went to check out the website and found out more. this, of course, is what i had read about earlier. nothing really exciting in the announcement. reward nights count towards status (similar to my preferred program, starwood preferred guest), and free internet to every member regardless of status.

but then, probably more importantly, i found out about the newest credit card offering for canadians in the priority club. the capital one priority club world mastercard. for a 120$ yearly fee, you earn 2 points per dollar spent (each point i value at 0.5c each). but probably the most important part was the fact that you earn platinum elite status just for having the card. it's the only card in canada which gives you a program's top tier status just for holding a credit card. it totally dilutes the value of platinum status if anyone can just purchase it for 120$ a year. this, of course, is a different story from america, where their credit card offerings are so much more generous ...

in the end, it won't affect me too much. i don't stay at priority club hotels often -- it's just the backup for when there's no starwood property nearby. i was already miffed when i was trying to book my hotels in SFO for may, 3 nights for 75k points. i was waiting for my e-rewards to post when, within a week, they devalued their points such that i needed 105k points instead. i'm still kind of sore about that. maybe if i was planning on staying at more holiday inns this year, this card would interest me more. but maybe others might find it useful.