By Dom Galeon
I don’t really have a lot of membership cards. Whenever I buy from one major retail outlet and the cashier asks me if I have one, I always jokingly say I’m “disadvantaged.” I don’t have membership cards not because I don’t want them, but because I often find it tedious to get one. But that’s not how I feel about the new Club Access card from Megaworld, which they will formally launch on Sept. 1 this year.
Maybe one good reason is all I need to be quite interested in this card, but I have 16. Megaworld’s Club Access card works for the 16 homegrown hotels the developer will have all over the country by 2021. And for all of those, you only need one card to access a ton of amazing privileges. At present, Megaworld’s chain of homegrown hotels already include four in Manila and two outside—Richmonde Hotel in Ortigas and in Eastwood, the Belmont and Savoy hotels in Newport City, Richmonde Iloilo, and Savoy Boracay—with two soon-to-open hotels, the Twin Lakes Hotel Tagaytay and Lucky Chinatown Hotel in Binondo.
Savoy Hotel Manila
In the next couple of years, eight more hotels are expected to open: Savoy Hotel Mactan and Belmont Hotel Mactan Newtown, both on Mactan Island, Cebu, Belmont Hotel Boracay and Chancellor Hotel Boracay, both on Boracay Island, Kingsford Hotel and Grand Westside Hotel in Westside City within the booming Entertainment City near Manila Bay, and two more hotels in the Visayas.
‘It’s not really like other loyalty cards, which require guests to frequent a hotel before they can get one. Instead of the guests proving their loyalty to us, here we are proving our loyalty to them.’“Why now? Because I think this is a time many of our hotels have opened or are opening,” says Nathalie Lim, resident manager of Richmonde Hotel Iloilo, who also serves as Megaworld’s spokesperson for Club Access. “I think this is the right time. Our hotels are becoming more well-known. It’s high time. We’ve already built the base, but we realize that there’s more potential and that it’s good to give our regular clients privileges—and also invite new ones!—and showcase our properties. So I think this is the right time. We’re now in different cities. So if you’re taking a vacation, you’re going to Iloilo, you’re going to Cebu, you’re going to Boracay, instead of before when it was just all in Manila,” she adds. “And we have many more properties in the pipeline.”
Membership cards are quite common for hotels. But you don’t really get to enjoy the perks of having a membership card for an international hotel that only has one or two branches in the country, unless you’re a globetrotter and you often find yourself abroad. Megaworld’s Club Access card, on the other hand, gives you a wealth of privileges—five-days worth of complimentary stays, unlimited 20 percent discount on best available rates and 10 percent discount on promotional rates for all types of rooms, discounts of up to 30 percent at their hotels’ food and beverage outlets, discounts for gym memberships and spa treatments, and an exclusive priority VIP lane for check-ins and check-outs—that are all applicable to any of their homegrown hotels in the Philippines.
“That’s the nice thing about being homegrown,” says Natalie. “Our perks are specifically designed for the market, and we can decide how else to make it even more apt for what they need. We’re flexible to be premium.”
Even better, each of their hotels offer exclusive perks. For example, Club Access cardholders get to enjoy two hours worth of complimentary non-motorized water sports activities at Hotel Savoy Boracay, plus free shuttle services from the hotel to the main jetty port station.
EXCLUSIVELY YOURS The resident managers of Megaworld's hotels (from left) Mario Justo Jr. of Richmonde Hotel Eastwood, Lorenzo Tang of Belmont Hotel Manila and Savoy Hotel Manila, Nathalie Lim of Richmonde Hotel Iloilo, Jorold Montelibano of Richmonde Hotel Ortigas, and Adie Gallares of Savoy Horel Boracay
“I think this is the right time to expand, and we will keep expanding. So the benefits will also keep expanding, and that’s very important for Megaworld hotels. A lot of people don’t realize that we’re all connected to each other—they don’t realize that Richmonde is connected to Savoy, and Savoy is connected to Belmont. It’s a network of hotels and the privilege card ties them all together,” Nat says. “It’s not really like other loyalty cards, which require guests to frequent a hotel before they can get one. Instead of the guests proving their loyalty to us, here we are proving our loyalty to them.”
Wrapped in elegant royal blue, Megaworld hotels’ Club Access card gives guests an entire year full of exclusive privileges and luxurious perks for a one-time membership fee of P6,999.