Langham Hotels launches its new ‘Brilliant’ loyalty programme

Langham is a luxury hotel group whose name may ring a bell. The original Langham hotel – generally regarded as the first ever ‘grand hotel’ to open in Europe – is in London, on Portland Place just behind Oxford Circus, and is still part of the group.

London is currently the only European site although a Venetian resort is under construction on Murano which sounds amazing. The bulk of the hotels are in Asia with a scattering in the US. It doesn’t have a single hotel in the Middle East.

Langham has just launched a new loyalty programme, Brilliant by Langham, which replaces the 1865 Privilege scheme and three other small programmes.

You can find out more on this dedicated website.

I thought it was worth a look to get a feel into what is driving loyalty schemes at smaller hotel brands. With Global Hotel Alliance now on a bit of a roll, there is a viable Plan B for smaller chains which do not want to run their own programme. They can sign up with GHA (or Preferred Hotels, or WorldHotels) and get the ability to reward their guests, and benefit from an existing membership base, for a fraction of the cost of running their own scheme.

Running your own programme is therefore a brave choice. This is especially true when only 30 hotels are taking part, as is the case here. These cover the following Langham brands:

• The Langham Hotels & Resorts
• Cordis Hotels & Resorts
• Eaton
• Ying’nFlo

The Chelsea Hotel in Toronto is also participating.

How does Brilliant by Langham work?

As you’d expect from a smaller scheme, it is entirely revenue based:

• you earn 150 points for every $5 spent

• events spending will earn 15 points per $5 spent

• you redeem points for a stay or a meal, with the points required based on the money spent – it is totally revenue based. There are no blackout dates – you can use points for any room type on any night as long as you have enough.

• points are valid for 24 months and reset whenever you have any earning or redemption activity

Strangely, the redemption rate is not published anywhere so I don’t know what percentage of your spending you will get back.

I read elsewhere that you cannot use ‘part cash, part points’ when redeeming, which is odd. If you are going to move to a purely revenue based redemption model (like Radisson or Accor) the least you can do is allow people to spend however few points they have for a discount on their next transaction. The Brilliant website is not wholly clear on this point so don’t take this as gospel.

I understand that airline point transfers from Brilliant will be available at some point, although no details of the partipating carriers or the redemption rate have been published.

What are the elite tiers in Brilliant by Langham?

The programme has five membership tiers:

• Onyx, which is the entry level
• Topaz – requires 12,000 points ($400) of spending
• Diamond – requires 108,000 points ($3,600) of spending
• Sapphire – requires 360,000 points ($12,000) of spending
• Ruby – requires 720,000 points ($24,000) of spending

Whilst I have done the maths for you to work out the spend required, the Brilliant website doesn’t do this. Given that the earn rate is ‘150 points per $5’ it would have been helpful to break this out.

What are the elite benefits?

Here is the table of elite benefits taken from the Brilliant website (click to enlarge):

It’s a relatively typical structure:

• you get a dining discount which increases as you move through the tiers

• you get a 10% to 50% points elite bonus as your tier increases (good luck working out your points per $1 when the base rate is ‘150 per $5’ and you’re getting a 15% or 25% bonus!)

• higher tier members get late check-out, early check-in and room upgrade privileges

‘Subject to availability’

The check-in and check-out privileges are all marked ‘subject to availability’ which, as regular readers will know, is not something I like. If I’ve spent $24,000 – before taxes – with you in the last year then I don’t really want a discussion about whether I can have a 4pm check-out.

If you are at a ‘resort hotel’, late check-out is not available at all, even for top tier members.

Similarly, the ‘room upgrade voucher’ (terms not disclosed) seems a bit thin. I don’t think a guaranteed one level room upgrade on every stay would have been too much to ask when you’re spending $24,000 per year. A one-off suite upgrade voucher would also have been interesting – and, of course, doesn’t even cost the hotels anything if the room is otherwise unsold.

Experiential benefits

As you can see from the chart, there is a big play on ‘experiential’ offerings for elite members. The press material talks of, for example, private cooking lessons, crafting workshops and dance and musical performances.

I am keen on these – I think a lot of people would rather use hotel points for anything except more hotel stays! – but it may be hard given Langham’s footprint. If we look at Marriott Bonvoy, for example, I stay at Marriott hotels outside London but often use my points for events linked to Marriott hotels here. Langham doesn’t have the footprint for that. Few of their regular guests will live near a Langham hotel where they could undertake an ‘experience’ event in their spare time.

Digital first

One thing where the programme does seem to score is in its ‘digital first’ approach.

There is a dedicated Brilliant app, and it seems that you can earn and spend points in the hotels and restaurants simply by having your mobile card scanned. There is also full WeChat integration for the Chinese market.

Conclusion

Brilliant by Langham is typical of what you would expect from a small upmarket hotel chain in 2024. It’s a revenue based programme, both on the earning and burning front, with a strong focus on ‘experiences’.

I know from talking to the Langham team that the ‘experiences’ side of the programme will be a far bigger part of it than the website suggests. If it can get this right then it could make a big difference, because segmented access to high profile or unique experiences would differentiate the five programme tiers in a way that the current benefits chart does not.

In general, where Brilliant could go further is by making the small size of the group a positive, not a negative.

When you only have 30 hotels it is easier to roll out guaranteed benefits such as upgrades or check-in / check-out privileges and keep a beady eye on the properties to ensure they deliver.

You are also dealing with a small number of elite members (you can’t earn Brilliant status as a credit card benefit) which arguably also allows you to offer more. Even if, for example, you gave out suite upgrade vouchers which had to be confirmed manually, you would only be dealing with a small number per day – we’re not talking about Marriott Bonvoy’s 200 million members here.

Will the new Brilliant by Langham programme be enough to drive incrememental business from guests via increased loyalty? We will see.

You can find out more on the dedicated Brilliant by Langham website here.

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