Dear community members and colleagues!
Following up on some threads in this community I would like to ask the community about this topic.
Competing with loyalty programs of big chains or OTAs is a challenge for small and/or independent hotels, especially in the competitive urban area, I believe.
Loyalty programs that are not restricted to a single property or chain might allow to regain some market share back from OTAs and chains. On the other hand it also connects your hotel with competing properties. But I guess it’s still a net positive thing to cooperate in this way to offer some alternative to OTA Loyalty programs like “Genius” and “OneKey”, right?
Have you been using a loyalty program like the following (those are just random ones I found with a quick online research, no affiliation what so ever) ?
https://www.globalhotelalliance.com/
What are your experiences?
How do you try to gain some frequent travellers, besides the big OTAs loyalty programs everyone more or less is expected to participate in?
Any other solution provider recommendation?
Which system can be well integrated with MEWS?
Does it need to be integrated with MEWS or would an integration with the booking engine used (if a third party solution) be sufficient?
Which system is better suited for properties in Europe/US/Other parts of the world?
Does it make more sense to focus on a system that is relevant in your source markets? Or should you focus on systems that are popular among hotels in your destination? How to evaluate this?
What to aks in demo sessions/interviews with providers?
Questions, Questions … 
Let’s get started...
I hope we can get some insight in to current trends and best practices for this topic.
Looking forward to your input, creative - insightfull - sceptical - enthusiastic - exploring - anything goes… :-)
Regards,
Jean-Philipp.