How does Global Hotel Alliance’s GHA DISCOVERY loyalty programme work?

GHA DISCOVERY, the loyalty programme for Global Hotel Alliance, has been making a name for itself over the last couple of years with a mix of easy to earn status, generous elite benefits and attractive promotions. Membership has shot up to 27 million people.

Tomorrow I want to look at a couple of new developments, but today I want to update our ‘reference’ article on GHA DISCOVERY for the benefit of those who are unfamiliar with it.

Global Hotel Alliance is a marketing group used by almost 40 upmarket hotel brands with a total of 800+ combined properties in over 100 countries. It is the world’s largest alliance of independent hotel brands.

Kempinski is the biggest brand that most people will know.  Other major names include NH Hotels and sister brand nhow, Pan Pacific, Corinthia, Capella, The Doyle Collection and Anantara.

In general, these are strong national chains in their respective heartlands which have not – with the exception of Kempinski – made the jump to being global brands.

The full list of members, including sub-brands, is:

• Anantara
• Araiya
• ASMALLWORLD
• Avani
• Bristoria
• Capella
• Corinthia
• Divani Collection
• The Doyle Collection
• Elewana
• JA
• Kempinski
• The Leela
• Lore Group
• Lungarno Collection
• Maqo
• Marco Polo
• Mysk
• NH Hotels
• NH Collection
• nhow
• Niccolo
• Nikki Beach
• NUO
• Oaks
• Outrigger
• Pan Pacific
• PARKROYAL
• Patina
• The Residence by Cenizaro
• The Set Collection
• Shaza
• The Sukhothai
• Sun International
• Tivoli
• Ultratravel
• Viceroy

There are also partnerships with Regent Seven Seas cruises (read more here), luxury home and villa group Plum Guide (read more here) and – coming later in 2024 – the Cheval serviced apartments group will be joining.

Regent Seven Seas and Plum Guide are purely ‘earn’ partnerships, with no ability to spend your DISCOVERY Dollars.

GHA DISCOVERY is the loyalty programme for Global Hotel Alliance

Because of the loose nature of the GHA grouping, it has not been possible to develop a points based redemption programme.  GHA does not have the muscle with its members to make them accept £50+ per night for a reward night, which is all the major hotel programmes pay to their properties if the hotel is not completely full.

Instead, you receive decent benefits plus DISCOVERY Dollars. This is essentially a cash rebate on your spending which you can put towards a future room booking.

Here is the full list of benefits online but in summary:

• Silver is the entry level, given to you immediately when you sign-up.  This is well worth doing.  It gets you access to member-only rates, free internet and 4% back in DISCOVERY Dollars, valid for 12 months.

• Gold requires just two stays or $1,000 of spending but has no real additional benefits, except that your cashback increases to 5% and is valid for 18 months.

• Platinum is their mid-tier status given after 10 nights in a year or $5,000 of spending or, more easily, staying at two different brands in a membership year.  Platinum gives you extra benefits on top – an upgrade to the next room category, a local amenity, 3pm late check-out and 6% back in DISCOVERY Dollars, valid for 24 months.

• Titanium status requires 30 nights, $15,000 of spending or, more easily, staying at three different brands in a membership year. You receive an 11am check-in, 4pm late check-out, a double upgrade, free breakfast at selected brands, a welcome amenity and 7% back in DISCOVERY Dollars, valid for 24 months.

The ability to reach Titanium or Platinum status by staying at just two or three brands is very interesting. If you were travelling in Asia, where GHA is strongest, you could achieve it relatively cheaply.

(Note that NH Collection, NH Hotels and nhow are treated as one brand for the purposes of earning status, which removes the cheapest option of hitting Platinum and Titanium in Europe.)

In my experience over the last 18 months, brands are good at recognising Titanium status. I got good upgrades at Capella Lisbon and a Kempinski in Slovenia last year, and got the top suite (having booked a base room) on a recent stay at nhow London.

Is revenue based redeeming a problem?

Whilst cashback-style reward schemes like DISCOVERY do not allow any arbitrage on redemptions ($1 = $1 off a room, so there are no bargains on peak pricing days), the upside is the ability to redeem against any room type.

You are not restricted to redeeming for standard rooms which often don’t work for families or those looking for lounge access, premium views etc.

It is also worth noting that, whilst there is no arbitrage of spending points, there IS flexibility when earning points.

GHA has been running a lot of generous promotions recently, including a long running offer of $15 of bonus credit per app booking. There are also occasional double and triple base points offers.

I recently booked a £190 nhow room. As well as triggering £50 of American Express cashback, I earned a total of $59 in DISCOVERY Dollars. This included 7% back as a Titanium member, 14% back via a triple points offer and a flat $15 back for an app booking.

The only catch is that, whilst base credits are valid for 12 – 24 months depending on your status, bonus credits – including triple points bonuses and the $15 app booking bonus – only last for six months. This wasn’t a concern for me as we have a Kempinski booking in August where I will spend my accrued earnings.

Because DISCOVERY Dollars for base level members expire after 12 months, this is not a scheme for anyone who only does a couple of hotel stays each year because your credit will expire unused. It is, however, a very good scheme for people who only do a small number (but more than a couple!) of hotel stays annually, because you can earn top tier status with just three stays at different brands.

How has GHA developed?

Global Hotel Alliance was launched in 2004 with the first iteration of a loyalty programme launched in 2010. The prgramme was overhauled in November 2021 when ‘DISCOVERY Dollars’ were launched.

The scheme is owned jointly by some of its larger members – Minor (NH, Anantara), Pan Pacific, Omni, Kempinski and Oracle Corporation.

GHA had a growth spurt a couple of years ago when NH Hotels was acquired by GHA shareholder Minor Group. It added almost 50% to the number of participating hotels and doubled the number of scheme members by folding in the existing NH loyalty programme.

The acquisition of NH added a strong business travel side to GHA, which was previously best known for its leisure resorts. It also refocussed the alliance on Europe, whereas it was previously strongest in Asia. (Even Kempinski, despite its German base, is strongest in Asia these days.)

800 hotels puts GHA closer to critical mass, making it around half the size of Hyatt with a similar split of high-end leisure and business properties.

Because GHA is a marketing consortium, there are different dynamics at play compared to other large hotel groups. If you are a hotel owner and adopt a Marriott brand, you have to join Bonvoy – it comes with the package. If you are a small chain such as The Set Collection, however, deciding to join a scheme such as GHA is totally voluntary. The hotel group needs to see that it can generate real value from its membership.

The house rule is that entire chains must join – Corinthia London, for example, couldn’t join without bringing the rest of the Corinthia chain with it. Hotels generally sign five year deals but the long term retention rate has been very high – losses are primarily due to chains being taken over, such as Alila (bought by Hyatt) and Rixos (Accor).

Interestingly, GHA brands can have their own sub-brand inside the loyalty programme. Stay at any Pan Pacific hotel, for example, and the programme is advertised as ‘Pan Pacific DISCOVERY’. This helps to cement the link between the individual brands and the programme, which is often an issue with marketing groups. Whilst the big hotel groups try to adopt the names of their sub-brands (‘Hampton by Hilton’, ‘Delta by Marriott’, ‘Courtyard by Marriott’ etc), GHA does not have the flexibility to get its name, literally, on the door.

The strategy, which CEO Chris Hartley shared with me in an interview a couple of years ago, is that by hand-picking individual brands GHA can offer a higher overall quality of hotel. Would you prefer to stay at a W (Marriott) or at a Nikki Beach or Viceroy (GHA)? Corinthia and the Cafe Royal in London would generally be seen as higher quality than anything the ‘big six’ global groups have to offer.

Tomorrow I’ll take a look at a couple of interesting recent developments at GHA.

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