If you’re lucky enough to have Platinum status with Le Club AccorHotels, you will now wake up to complimentary daily breakfast for you and registered guests staying in the same room at hotels in Asia Pacific, including New Zealand and Australia.

A full list of participating properties can be found here.

Locations & key hotels

Accor have a large presence in the New Zealand and Australian market, and have over 4,200 hotels in 95 countries worldwide, providing accommodation in some of the most popular business destinations across the globe. The group includes a range of brands such as Sofitel, Novotel, Mercure, Grand Mercure, The Sebel, Ibis, MGallery, Adagio and Pullman.

They have 29 properties in New Zealand. Current locations include:

• Auckland
• Christchurch
• Dunedin
• Hamilton
• Invercargill
• Nelson
• New Plymouth
• Queenstown
• Rotorua
• Wellington

Below are a few AccorHotels properties that we have stayed at and reviewed:

Sofitel Viaduct Harbour Auckland

Hotel Grand Windsor Auckland – MGallery by Sofitel

Novotel Auckland Airport

Status

AccorHotels offer four status tiers in the following order (from lowest to highest): Classic, Silver, Gold, and Platinum.

You can find more information about the status tiers and benefits on the AccorHotels website.

Here is an overview of the benefits for each status level.

Classic

Requirement: just enrolment in the program

• Complimentary Internet
• Express check-out
• Access to Private Sales, 48 hours before non-members
• Up to 10% discount off room rates at participating hotels

Silver

Requirement: 10 nights or 2,000 Status Points

In addition to Classic benefits:

• Priority check-in
• Complimentary welcome drink for you and registered guests staying in your room
• Late check-out on request, and subject to availability. At MyResort properties, you’ll be able to enjoy resort amenities beyond normal times

You’ll receive complimentary Silver status if you become an Accor Plus member.

Gold

Requirement: 30 nights or 7,000 Status Points

In addition to Classic and Silver benefits:

• Early check-in on request, and subject to availability
• Guaranteed room availability up to 3 days before arrival
• In-room welcome amenity
• Complimentary upgrade to the next room category, if available at the time of check-in. If not available, upgrade to best available room in current category
• Complimentary newspaper at Sofitel properties
• Host benefits at MyResorts properties

You’ll receive complimentary Gold status if you become an ibis Business Card member.

Platinum

Requirement: 60 nights or 14,000 Status Points

In addition to Classic, Silver, and Gold benefits:

• Access to Executive Lounges in these locations
• Guaranteed room availability up to 2 days before arrival
• Complimentary breakfast at these Asia-Pacific properties
• Premium Wi-Fi where available
• 10% discount on treatments at Thalassa Sea & Spa Institutes, and in the restaurant/bar at select Mercure properties
• Complimentary ironing service at Pullman Hotels & Resorts (one item per stay)
• Free soft drinks from the mini-bar at MGallery
• Extend Platinum benefits to another room at MyResorts properties, plus receive a surprise gift

You may receive complimentary Platinum status if you become an Accor Plus member through your New Zealand-issued American Express Platinum Charge card.

Earning and redeeming Le Club AccorHotels Rewards points

AccorHotels have varying earn rates at their different property brands, making it a bit confusing to calculate how many points you’ll earn. They also base their earn rate on the amount you spend, converted to euros.

Here is the full earn rate table:

They do have a calculator that you can use, which makes it a bit easier to work out exactly how much you’ll earn for your spend at any given property.

Accor then offer you two options for redemption — you can redeem 2,000 Rewards points for 40 euros of Accor credit or alternatively Transfer them over to Frequent Flyer points. Either is a valid use of Le Club points but the frequent flyer redemption options deserve further explanation.

Why transfer Le Club points to frequent flyer programs?

If you want a discount on hotels, you can keep the points with Le Club AccorHotels. However, generally, people prefer to transfer the points to their Frequent Flyer Programs and use them to fly Business or First Class as this can provide higher per-point value.

Not all reward programs are created equal for Accor, though. The general rule is 4,000 Le Club AccorHotels points transfer to 2,000 miles.

Why preference Qantas and Velocity?

There are some exceptions, with Qantas and Velocity being the two most applicable to Kiwis where points are converted more favourably — 1 Rewards point equals 1 Qantas or Velocity Frequent Flyer point.

You can then use your Qantas Points to fly in Emirates First Class

What about Airpoints Dollars?

You cannot convert Rewards points to Airpoints Dollars. However you can choose to earn Airpoints Dollars instead at select hotels in New Zealand and Fiji.

You’ll earn 20 APD for stays at Sofitel properties.

Stays at Pullman Hotels, Mgallery Hotels, Grand Mercure Hotels & Apartments, Novotel Hotels & Resorts, and Mercure Hotels & Resorts will see you earn 1 APD per NZD $15 spent.

See here for more information.

From my experience, you cannot earn both Airpoints Dollars, and book your stay online as a logged in AccorHotels member. If you are logged in, when you check-in at the hotel, they will often inform you that you will only earn Rewards points and not Airpoints Dollars. I have raised this issue with Air New Zealand and I understand that they are working on tweaks to this arrangement.

How to transfer points to frequent flyer programs

Le Club AccorHotels offers the option of transferring your points to any of their partner frequent flyer programs.

Here are the transfer rates and minimum manual transfer amounts for the most popular for us in New Zealand:

• Qantas: 1:1 ratio, 2,000 minimum
• Velocity: 1:1, 4,000 minimum
• Asia Miles: 2:1, 4,000 minimum
• KrisFlyer: 2:1, 4,000 minimum

To transfer your points from Le Club AccorHotels to the frequent flyer program of your choice, you can either do it yourself when you reach the minimum threshold or set up an automatic transfer (not available for Velocity).

Choose auto-transfer for Qantas, Asia Miles and KrisFlyer

With manual transfer, you need to log in, and then transfer the points once you reach the minimum transfer amount, and you need to use or transfer the points within 12 months. There are ways around this though—for Qantas Points, you only require 1 Le Club point in your account to enable auto-transfer; for Asia Miles and KrisFlyer, it’s 2 points.

So, to get around the manual transfer minimum generally needed for frequent flyer programs, you can select automatic transfer over to these three programs, which is a great win. Once you change your preference to auto-transfer, all existing points in your account will transfer upon completion of your next stay.

You can accrue as little as 1 or 2 points and they will still be automatically transferred.

You need to do a manual transfer for Velocity

Unfortunately, the automatic transfer option without a minimum points balance is not available for Velocity members; if converting your points to Velocity, you need to accrue 4,000 points to do so.

For more information, check the short general terms and conditions related to airline company partners of the Le Club AccorHotels loyalty program.

Current offers

You can access a full list of current offers here.

Summing up

The best value option between keeping your points in Le Club AccorHotels compared to transferring to frequent flyer programs is dependent on your personal circumstances, as always—and especially in this case how many Le Club points you have, are likely to earn, and where you want to transfer them due to Accor’s transfer limits.

For most people, I would be inclined to recommend transferring the points to frequent flyer programs, and learning how to get the best value for their use—but if the 40 euro credit on your next stay is an easy win for you, then there’s little loss in redeeming for that either.

I stay at AccorHotels properties quite frequently, and therefore keep my points in the AccorHotels program until I know exactly what I want to do with them. They’ll never expire as long as you earn points at least once per year. This way, it effectively functions as an excellent flexible-points program.

And remember, those lucky enough to be American Express Platinum Charge cardholders will automatically receive generous additional benefits with the complimentary Accor Plus membership.

Supplementary images courtesy AccorHotels.