Our take:  We agree with the travel industry analyst who said ‘it is the absolutely the wrong decision to make at a time when hotel demand is down from corporate business, conferences and leisure.”  It will save cash, but the timing is very poor.

In a follow up post, found here, three other brands seemed to distance themselves from Hilton’s strategy. 

Our favorite comment was from IHG’s Jim Abrahamson who said that rewards members are twice as profitable and elite-level members are 12 times as profitable.  He goes on to say “if one platinum-level member leaves us, we’d have to go out and find 12 new customers just to replace that one.”