GHA Discovery has spent the last month or so drip-feeding information on a new program launching in December. This week’s snippet from them gives us a view of the Rewards side of the program.
The current program has not really focused so much on rewards. There have offered the rather unique Local Experience program, but outside that, there has been very little.
Discovery Dollars
Under the new program, GHA Discovery will be introducing Discovery Dollars (D$) as a new currency, instead of points.
To keep it relatively simple, 1 D$ will initially have a value of 1 US$. Having a value parity such as this should help work out the exact value of points, and whether using them will be worthwhile.
Earning Discovery Dollars
Members will be able to earn Discovery Dollars while spending at their local Discovery hotels. While you earn points on your stay, it appears you will also be able to earn points when spending, even if not staying in-house. For example, you can earn points while dining in a hotel, even if you aren’t staying.
GHA Discovery will award Discovery Dollars based on your tier membership level. You will earn between 4% and 7% of your spending in the form of Discovery Dollars. Based on that, we assume that a base member will earn 4% and a titanium member will earn 7%. Based on that, perhaps Gold will earn 5% and Platinum 6%.
Conversion of Local Experience Awards
As the current way of awarding Local Experiences will be ending, GHA Discovery will convert any unused and unexpired awards to Discovery Dollars. The conversion rate will be D$100 (USD 100) for Platinum Local Experience awards and D$200 (USD 200) for Black Local Experience awards. You can expect to see this conversion reflected in your member account on 7 December 2021.
Using Discovery Dollars
You will be able to apply Discovery Dollars towards your bills in Discovery Hotels. For example, you could use it against your room rate, or for Dining. The exact mechanics of this remain to be seen,
Thoughts
Previous announcements from GHA Discovery have given us some insight into how the status side of the program will work. Or at least, what the new status levels are, and how to attain them.
Now we have seen more of their Rewards proposition. It does remain to be seen how this will all work in practice. Having said that, they do seem to have had a pretty thorough rethink of how the program works.
For further information, refer here.
