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IHG removes Mr & Mrs Smith boutique hotels from its website after Hyatt acquisition

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Hyatt recently announced the acquisition of the Mr & Mrs Smith hotel booking platform.

The cost is £53 million, reflecting the ‘asset light’ nature of the acquisition (ie the company doesn’t actually own any hotels, although it does have 100 staff).

Participating hotels from the 1,500 bookable via Mr & Mrs Smith will appear on hyatt.com and will presumably be ‘earn and burn’ partners for World of Hyatt points.

The deal completed a few days, and IHG One Rewards has moved quickly to separate from the group.

The IHG website now says:

“We are no longer accepting bookings for stays at Mr & Mrs Smith properties. If you already have an upcoming reservation confirmed, your booking will not be affected and you will still be eligible to earn points on the stay. You can review and manage your reservation in your IHG One Rewards account and on the IHG One Rewards app.​”

Whilst a blow for IHG (Mr & Mrs Smith took the group into 14 new countries), this is actually a better result than I expected.

When a hotel leaves a brand, you usually see two things happen:

  • existing points bookings are cancelled
  • existing cash bookings no longer earn points or status benefits

IHG has done neither of these things:

  • existing redemptions are protected
  • existing cash bookings will still earn IHG One Rewards credit

There was very little in the way of IHG status recognition at Mr & Mrs Smith so this won’t be missed.

When will Mr & Mrs Smith hotels join World of Hyatt?

It’s not yet clear when the Smith hotels will be added to the Hyatt website.

Hyatt said in a statement when the deal was initially announced:

“We are excited by this planned acquisition and to explore bringing guests and World of Hyatt members even more global luxury offerings across hundreds of geographies – including over 20 countries where there are currently no Hyatt hotels such as Fiji, Croatia, Iceland and Anguilla.

Founders Tamara and James Lohan alongside their impressive team have built the ultimate global direct booking collection of truly unique stay experiences including rooms located in treehouses, within caves, and underwater suites. Importantly, we see a lot of synergy between our collective ethos of care, and we look forward to working together to bring our shared focus to new, memorable stay experiences for guests and World of Hyatt members – and introduce new guests to Hyatt hotels around the world.”

There are apparently 1 million ‘members’ of the Mr & Mrs Smith booking club, which Hyatt hopes to leverage into World of Hyatt.

We’ll let you know when they appear. Hyatt has an existing deal on a similar basis with Small Luxury Hotels so it knows how to put such a partnership together.

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Category

IHG One Rewards, World of Hyatt

Comments (31)

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  • The Original Nick says:
    10 Jun10 June 07:48

    That’s a shame. I used Mr & Mrs Smith for a Riad in Marrakesh in January. No recognition of status but an excellent use of points.

    • lonjams says:
      10 Jun10 June 09:54

      Which Riad did you go to? Do you recommend it?

      • The Original Nick says:
        10 Jun10 June 11:31

        Riad Dar One. Its very Qaint and tucked away. You can see the Atlas mountains from the rooftop and if your up there early enough you can see the air balloons going up to see the sunrise which is spectacular.
        Location was perfect. Our room was small but good enough as we like to be out and about day and night where ever we are. I can forward you Abdels number who runs the place if you want? We also got a transfer from airport to Riad which is a must do because we’d of never of found it.

        • meta says:
          10 Jun10 June 13:43

          I got recognition there as Goldsmith on NYE/January even though I booked via IHG on a mixture of points and cash. Got welcome wine and even though I booked cheapest room for points nights they let us keep the rooftop ‘suite’. This also had a private terrace above the main terrace and since there was no-one in the evening and mornings there we had the whole rooftop to ourselves. New Year’s dinner was cheaps as cheaps at 20 euros per person and lots of delicious food. It was just great and we were the only ones. Also stayed later at Les Deux Tours also on IHG points and got a free dinner as ‘Goldsmith’ and an upgrade to junior suite with a terrace.

          I am Diamond Ambassador and you were supposed to get Goldsmith extra benefits which includes an upgrade subject to availability and a Smith extra.

          • Alex Sm says:
            11 Jun11 June 03:09

            Cheeky! Following Rob’s advice on booking cheap room for points and expensive for cash hoping to keep it

        • BP says:
          10 Jun10 June 15:19

          I stayed here before it was a Mr and Mrs Smith property. The rooftop suite was nice but small. The chicken and lemon tagine was outstanding!

  • Jonathan says:
    10 Jun10 June 07:55

    I struggled to find points availability so no great loss!

    IHG are lacking high end properties though. I opted years back for IHG instead of Starwood (as points earning was easier) but struggle to spend them now. Marriott is where I should have put my spend for the last 8 years.

  • RobH not Rob says:
    10 Jun10 June 07:56

    Be interesting to see where Mr & Mrs Smith redemptions are positioned points wise.

    Hopefully there will be the odd sweet spot now IHG’s wretched dynamic points pricing will no longer apply.

  • Mohamed says:
    10 Jun10 June 08:02

    IHG missed the point of acquisition of Belmond years ago, a missed opportunity, six senses many properties still reluctant to be complete part of IHG1 reward.

    • JDB says:
      10 Jun10 June 08:54

      It was perhaps a lucky escape – Belmond is on a downward trend for all the same reasons as Four Seasons; both are working hard at ruining formerly great hotels.

  • Miles says:
    10 Jun10 June 08:15

    Used Them at The Lygon arms in the Cotswolds ,Great Venue and Hotel ,but no recognition what so ever of IHG status, even when i asked i was brushed off . Just for that will not be sorry to see them go !

  • David says:
    10 Jun10 June 08:35

    Sitting in Florence airport after a week in a Mr & Mrs Smith on points. Stayed in one in Penzance last Autumn. Both nice, unusual hotels that offered 0.55p per point. Sorry to see them go.

    • Rob says:
      10 Jun10 June 08:42

      I might regret not burning more of my IHG points given 0.55p, I agree.

      Biggest problem with IHG for us (and my wife and I are sitting on close to 1m between us) is that only being able to redeem for standard rooms doesn’t work for us. Even if we split the kids and take two rooms, a standard at most hotels is inconvenient as I normally need to stay up and work into the early hours whilst the other person sleeps.

      • aseftel says:
        10 Jun10 June 10:15

        I’m yet to find an IHG property that won’t let you upgrade a standard room redemption to a room of your choice (usually the difference in flex rate). Only downside is that you don’t earn points on the room rate supplement.

      • strickers says:
        10 Jun10 June 15:33

        I’ve booked separate consecutive nights on points then a final night on cash, this then gets followed up with an email to negotiate an upgrade for cash. The upgrade charges usually get rolled into the last nights and I almost always earn points on the whole thing.

  • meta says:
    10 Jun10 June 08:42

    The few times I did stay, I did get recognition, but as Mr&Mrs Smith Goldsmith not IHG which meant usually an upgrade and/or a bottle of wine, welcome dinner on one occasion or welcome amenity. You also got status night credits on points bookings.

  • sayling says:
    10 Jun10 June 10:00

    Who are Hyatt paying the £53m to?

    • Rob says:
      10 Jun10 June 10:09

      The shareholders – James and Tamara, some outside investors and people who participated in a crowdfunding a few years ago. Arguably they diluted their shareholdings too much, because it isn’t exactly a capital intensive business.

      • sayling says:
        10 Jun10 June 17:55

        Interesting, thanks.

        Did IHG pay anything originally? Well they get anything out of it?

    • JDB says:
      10 Jun10 June 10:11

      I believe the net figure is a bit under £40m and the Lohans owned c.15%, the rest being owned by around 2,500 shareholders, many of whom participated in a crowdfunding a few years ago.

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