Accor Advantage Plus Review

With our increasing stays at hotels under the Accor group especially in Asia, I recently purchased a Accor Advantage Plus membership.  Accor Advantage Plus is a paid membership that comes with additional perks when staying at a hotel under the Accor group in the Asia Pacific region which includes even Australia, New Zealand and French Polynesia.

Per their website, the yearly membership comes with the following “standard” perks:

• Discounts when dining at restaurants in hotels under the Accor group. The discounts range from 25% when dining alone, 50% when two people are dining, 33% when three people are dining and etc.
• 15% discount for drinks at hotel bars & restaurants
• Aclub Silver Status – not very significant perk as the only gain from this are the additional points for hotel stays.
• 1 free night voucher for a stay in any Asia Pacific Accor Hotel.  There have been complains online that this voucher was hard to use with very poor availability.  On the contrary, the free night voucher can be booked online and base on some dummy bookings for China, Bora Bora, Hong Kong & Bangkok on random dates in 2011, availability seems pretty good.
• 10% off room rates.  This include sales rate and even during the yearly “50% off super sale” that Accor hotels have. 
• Guest Member cards for friends & family.
• Free birthday cake when dining during birthday month

The membership fee varies per country.  I bought my membership through the Malaysian office for about ~$150USD which I thought was pretty reasonable.  The free night and the 50% off meals will easily pay off the membership fee.

On top of the “standard” perks, I was pleasantly surprised that there were additional vouchers and discounts when I received my membership pack.  This included upgrade vouchers for hotels in Malaysia, discounts for spa treatments & additional dining discounts. Some hotels are also unofficially upgrading guests with Advantage Plus membership. There are also reports online that some countries like Singapore are throwing in an additional one free night (for a total of 2) on the yearly membership. Should have negotiated harder with the sales agent!

Membership pack:

Overall, I think the membership is a good value that pays for itself for those in Asia.  A pretty good way to use the membership is to visit Bora Bora, where rooms can go up to $300-$500 USD a night using the free night vouchers (sign up for a membership for each member of the family J) and enjoying the 50% dining discount. We’ll continue to sign up for Accor Advantage Plus with upcoming stays in Bangkok, Beijing and Harbin going to Accor Hotels.