Priority Club Reward members can redeem points for rewards when using their mobiles.

Priority Club Rewards, the world's leading hotel guest loyalty programme, announced today the launch of a new innovative benefit that allows members to earn points for mobile phone calls made during visits to a number of countries. In Asia, countries include Hong Kong SAR, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Macau, Pakistan, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Thailand.

Priority Club members can earn between two and 10 points per minute of talking time for outgoing calls, depending on which country they are in.  In Hong Kong and India, members can also earn points for incoming calls. Points earned from mobile phone calls can be used to redeem items in the Priority Club redemption catalogue, which features rewards ranging from hotel stays and airline tickets to dining and shopping certificates. 

For the hotel stays, the points can be redeemed at any of IHG's nearly 4,000 hotels worldwide, including InterContinental Hotels & Resorts, Crowne Plaza Hotels & Resorts, Hotel Indigo, Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Staybridge Suites and Candlewood Suites.

The new programme is made possible through IHG's partnership with Travelling Connect, one of the leading global providers of Client Relationship Management (CRM) solutions to the airline and telecommunication industries. 

There are another seven countries in Africa, Europe and the Middle East where Travelling Connect have agreements with mobile operators that award points to Priority Club members who use their roaming services when visiting those countries.

Gary Rosen, Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing for Asia Pacific said:  "Priority Club Rewards has become the world's largest hotel guest loyalty programme as a result of continuous innovation in ways that are meaningful, relevant and provide significant value to our members.  With this new earn-points-as-you-talk service, what was previously seen as a cost will now be translated into real time value and benefits. 

The potential is just incredible.  As at end 2007, the number of mobile users globally reached 2.6 billion and this is forecasted to almost double to 4.1 billion by 2014. "

Registering to earn points for mobile calls is easy. Priority Club members just need to log on to the Travelling Connect website at www.travellingconnect.com/priorityclub to register their membership numbers and mobile numbers.  Each member can register up to three mobile numbers.  When travelling to countries where the roaming service is available, members have to manually select the corresponding mobile network in order to earn points.

Photo provided by visMedia.