Vacations are always the dream, and staying in hotels without paying full price – or just by using points – is the icing on top of that dream. Hotel brands recognized this in recent years and have launched increasingly competitive credit cards to bring travelers closer to their brand, turning oat milk lattes into ocean view rooms – one point at a time, even including elite guest benefits for big spenders.
Accor Hotels and their new(ish) ALL – Accor Live Limitless loyalty program has been a noticeably absent participant, but not for much longer. It’s now got Visa as a launch partner for a new suite of credit cards for the program.
Accor, the group behind Fairmont, Raffles, Sofitel, Pullman, Mercure and Ibis has partnered Visa to create a new payment card with a focus on emerging digital technology. Like most hotel loyalty program cards, the key focus will include unequaled earning rates on spending at Accor Hotels and gamified ways to make the card a go-to in the wallet, via loyalty perks and experiences.
With an issuer in place, Accor will now establish banking partners across key markets, including the USA, Europe, Asia and APAC to launch the new Accor Live Limitless cards to consumers.
Accor favored well in a recent comparison of the best loyalty programs for families, given the easy ways to redeem points and generous status benefits, but the lack of ability to earn points via credit card spend, other than via Capital One made it of limited use in key markets.
With that changing, the program will deserve a much deeper look, particularly from members of other chains who have become disenfranchised by recent changes.
We’ll update this page as specific details on the cards available in each market become available. One thing is for certain, competition in loyalty credit cards drives better benefits for travelers, and we tend to like that – a lot.
Accor isn’t a very exciting program because their points just offer a straight discount off the cash rate. There’s no such thing as a sweet spot or outsized redemption. Yeah, that’s easy, but that combined with their small US footprint means a likely dud of a credit card.
What’s the date of this post? Can’t find it anywhere.
Is there an update to this yet?
I can’t find where to apply for an Accor credit card.