The second booking: Your regular can earn points at your hotel. The program decides where she books.

Points programs for independent hotels give a guest a reason to return, but each one decides where she must book to earn and what your hotel is paid when she spends them

by Markus Busch

An independent hotel can't run Bonvoy. It can join something that works like it. Several programs now offer exactly that: a points currency shared across hundreds of independent hotels, so a guest who stays with you earns something she can spend at the next hotel, and a guest from the next hotel can spend it with you.

The pitch is about reach. How many members, how many hotels, how many countries. What decides the deal sits in three other places: where the guest has to book to earn, what your hotel pays when a member stays, and what it is paid when she comes back on points. The first decides whose website gets her second booking. The other two decide whether her loyalty costs you money or makes it.

Here is how three of the programs answer.

GHA pays out only when she books direct

The Global Hotel Alliance runs GHA DISCOVERY for about 1,000 hotels, with 35 million members by its own count. It calls itself an alliance of independent hotel brands, and it means independent of the big chains: its members are groups like Kempinski, Anantara and NH, each running the program under its own name. A single hotel gets in through a collection that is already a member, such as GHA's own Ultratravel Collection. The hotel owners are GHA's shareholders.

Members earn 4% to 7% of what they spend back as DISCOVERY Dollars, depending on their tier, and each one is worth a US dollar off the bill. The terms rule out OTA rates. A guest earns when she books on the hotel brand's own website, in its app, or on GHA's site. A booking through Booking.com or Expedia earns nothing.

GHA's executives described the money side to CoStar in January 2025. There is no fixed fee, and nothing is charged for the stay on which a guest joins. The hotel pays when a member comes back and books direct: a fee that covers GHA's costs and the DISCOVERY Dollars she earns on that stay. In other words, the hotel funds the 4% to 7% she takes away. GHA puts the cost of that business at a fraction of an OTA's. In 2024 its chief executive compared it to 5% against an OTA's 20%, which is GHA's own figure. It doesn't publish the fee itself, or what a hotel receives when a guest pays with dollars earned elsewhere.

Stash pays the hotel for the free night

Stash Hotel Rewards works only with independent hotels, almost all in the United States. It doubled its network in two years, to more than 320 hotels by November 2024. A member earns five points per dollar when she books through Stash or directly with the hotel. Stash also sells rooms outside its network, chain hotels included, through its own site, where members earn one point per dollar.

There is no upfront cost, its founder told Hotel Management in November 2024, and after a one-year agreement it runs month to month. Stash charges a hotel only when a member stays, according to ResNexus, a reservation system that connects to it, and the member's details and preferences come with the booking for the hotel to market to afterward. Stash doesn't publish its rate per stay.

Its model differs most on the free night. The hotel sets how many points a night costs, and the price moves with its own rate, so a sold-out Saturday costs more points than a quiet Tuesday. When a member spends points, Stash says it pays the hotel for the night in cash. That is Stash's own description, and if it holds, a free night shows up at the hotel as revenue.

Journey now pays its points on bookings made through Journey

Journey is the newest of the three. It opened to hotels in 2024, says it now covers more than 2,000 hotels and private residences, and in June built its currency into Cloudbeds' hotel system, which we have covered. At launch it promised members at least five points per dollar on stays booked directly with the property, and one point through an OTA.

Its money comes from a different place. Journey says it charges partner hotels no commission. A hotel decides whether to issue points on its own direct bookings, at what rate and for which tiers, and pays for the points it issues. When a member spends points at the hotel, the hotel receives the rate it set. Hotel Tech Report lists Journey's software from $400 a month.

Its terms, updated on September 26, add a second business. The points Journey promises across its network now come on bookings made through Journey, where Journey collects the payment: three points per dollar for a free member, five for a member who pays $195 a year. Money paid directly to a hotel doesn't qualify. A guest who books on your own website earns whatever your hotel's own program, run on Journey's software, gives her. That can be Journey points, or nothing.

A program sold to hotels as a way to win the direct booking has started taking bookings itself. The terms don't say what Journey keeps on those.

None of the three publishes a rate card

So the numbers that decide the deal come out of a sales meeting, and three questions bring them out.

Ask where the guest has to book to earn. If the answer is your website, your app or your phone, the program is working for your second booking. If the answer is the program's own website, it is working for its own, whatever it does for your first.

Ask what you pay per member stay, in a figure. The fee may depend on the hotel. Put it in the contract next to your OTA commission and compare the two on the same stay.

Ask what you are paid when a guest stays on points. A cash amount per night, the rate you set, or nothing. A program that pays nothing turns your best returning guest into a cost.

Read also: The second booking: Your regular came back through Booking.com. Your system thinks she's new. · Marriott owners want a cut of the loyalty fees they say they fund

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