This luxury hotel group wants to charge you $200 to join its loyalty program—it just might be worth it

Subscriptions are shaping up to be the new new thing in loyalty programs.

The idea was pioneered by coffee chains like Pret-a-Manger, Panera, and Au Bon Pain, which have boosted traffic to their stores by offering members free drinks for monthly fees. Sweetgreen jumped on the trend this spring by giving customers discounts on salads through its $10-a-month Sweetpass+ membership. And now, hotel group Ennismore is taking the model up a notch by applying it to stylish hotels. Among Ennismore’s 75 hotels and 150 restaurants are some of the hospitality’s most beloved and unique brands, The Hoxton, 21c Museum Hotels, SO/ Hotels, SLS, and Mama Shelter among them.

Unlike the most hotel loyalty programs, which are free to join and offer travelers greater rewards the more they stay (and spend on cobranded credit cards), Ennismore’s recently unveiled program, dubbed Dis-loyalty, asks members to pay $216 a year, or $18 a month. And then the value starts accruing. Members receive five simple benefits, with no blackout dates: 50% off stays at new hotels within in the first three months of opening; 20% off a first time stay in any Ennismore hotel; 10% off return stays; 10% off food and beverage at almost all Ennismore restaurants (a couple are still being negotiated); and one barista-made beverage at any of the company’s hotels and restaurants, even if you’re not a guest, every single day of the year.

“I’ve been fascinated for a long while by subscription models that also offer a community,” explains Ennismore founder and Co-CEO Sharan Pasricha. The hitch, however, was how he could create a program that lived outside the already robust one of Accor, the French hospitality giant that owns a controlling stake in Ennismore. “When we only had eight or 10 hotels, a loyalty program outside of Accor just wouldn’t work.”

But as his hotel group grew to encompass 10 different brands and dozens of properties, Pasricha saw a picture emerging. “We took a lot of time scratching our heads, thinking about how to bring folks to together, ” he says. “We came up with idea of a subscription model that rewards you for being disloyal, for trying new places.”

The idea is similar, in some ways, to Vail’s wildly successful Epic Pass, which entices skiers to buy into a brand with dozens of ski resorts—and once they’ve committed, lure them into trying (and spending money at) as many mountains as possible. For Ennismore, the enticement can take the form of $80 off each night in an $800 room at the SLS Baha Mar in the Bahamas. Or simply a free cup of coffee.

That free barista-beverage benefit, says Pasricha, “is really a nod to folks who literally work near one of our hotels or coffee shops.” If I were, for example, to get an oat latte ($6.50) at the Hoxton every time I used my coworking space upstairs in Chicago’s West Loop (twice a week, 50 weeks a year), I’d save $434. But I’d also be very likely to try the Hoxton restaurant and use it as a place for in-person meetings. “As a lifestyle company, with roughly 40% of our gross revenue coming from restaurants, bars, and coffee shops, once you do the maths, it doesn’t take much for you to work out the give-get,” says Pasricha.

The one catch is that travelers must book their hotel stays on Dis-loyalty.com. They won’t gain any Accor Live Limitless points, and there’s really no way to game the system.

Charging just $18 a month makes the Dis-loyalty program an inclusive model, as opposed to frequent flier or hotel loyalty programs that require a certain spend or night-stays/flights completed to move up the benefits ladder. “This is designed for folks who love to try new things,” says Pasricha. “If you want to go to the same hotel, knock yourself out. But if you go to one of our 30 openings every year from the Paris to Singapore, the savings will add up.”

As Pasricha sets about to disrupt traditional loyalty programs, he’s also undoubtedly adding a new revenue stream. “If you look at our business as a global hospitably firm, our revenue streams are already more diversified than traditional competitors, which allows us to think more responsibly about our business model,” he says. Though he notes that 5% percent of subscription revenue will go to charities that improve the local neighborhoods where the company’s hotels are based.

Ennismore will soon be rolling out Dis-loyalty Drops, unique and limited experiences only available to members on the Dis-loyalty.com site. Pasricha says that these will be “money-can’t-buy experiences, like staying at a hotel with mates and going to that super-hard-to-get-a-reservation place.” And this can happen in any of the 30 countries where Ennismore has a presence.

Going up against loyalty programs like those of Marriott, Hyatt, and even Accor is no easy task. But Pasricha insists that his clientele have a different mindset from those loyal to bigger brands. “Post-Covid, we’ve seen a huge shift in folks traveling further away, staying longer, and doing a lot more. They are reassessing what’s important to them, and they want new adventures,” he says. And getting 50% off the new SO/ resort in the Maldives—which is opening in November 2023 with rooms starting at $1,282 per night—certainly beats boring.