Millennium & Copthorne Hotels tweaks the My Millennium loyalty scheme

Millennium & Copthorne is a hotel chain with a presence across the UK, Asia, North America and New Zealand.  

It relaunched its loyalty scheme as My Millennium in 2016 and has recently streamlined the scheme considerably. As many HfP readers may find themselves in a Millennium or Copthorne hotel in the UK from time to time, it’s worth taking a look and seeing what has changed.

About Millennium & Copthorne Hotels

M&C comprises two core brands with some smaller add-ons:

Millennium Collection, operating under the Millennium, Grand Millennium and M Hotel brands, runs 70 five star and high-end four star properties.  These are concentrated on major business centres.

Copthorne Collection, operating under the Copthorne, Grand Copthorne and Kingsgate brands, runs 39 midscale properties, mainly in regional centres.  It operates in the UK, New Zealand, Middle East, Malaysia and Singapore.

M Hotels is a new brand for Millennium’s lifestyle hotels.  There are currently four properties, trading under the M Social and Studio M names.

Leng’s Collection is a catch-all name for 10 unbranded properties owned by the group, including The Chelsea Harbour Hotel (below), The Bailey’s Hotel in London and the Hard Days Night hotel in Liverpool.

The group also owns some hotels which are branded by other groups, such as the Grand Hyatt Taipei and the Novotel New York Times Square.

The My Millennium loyalty scheme

The old M&C Loyalty Club was closed in late 2015.  It was replaced with My Millennium – here is the home page.  My Millenium has just undergone a full 2019 refresh.

My Millennium is designed to reward guests who stay at those hotels owned by the group which are run under their own brands.  This means, primarily, the Millennium, Copthorne and Kingsgate hotels.  Hotels managed by other chains under their own brands, such as the Millennium Hilton properties, do not take part.

There are 20 participating hotels in the UK, all branded Millennium or Copthorne as you can see here.

My Millennium benefits

The key reason to join My Millennium – even if you are only staying one night – is for the 10% discount.  It is automatic to all scheme members at participating hotels.

You earn 10 My Points for every $1 spent in participating hotels on the room rate.  Food and drink spend no longer earns points, which was a major selling point of the old scheme.

If you stay more than 10 nights at participating properties within a yearly period, your points balance will be doubled, a generous if unusual offer.  This yearly period is calculated from your membership start date, although this is set at 19th March for existing members who joined before the latest changes.  You also get triple points for all stays during your birthday month, which is also a little unusual.

Points expire after 12 months.  This is a hard expiry and there is nothing you can do to extend their life.  However, it appears from the FAQ that you can transfer your points to someone else, seemingly for free.

What are the membership tiers?

My Millennium no longer has membership tiers.  This means that the new loyalty scheme is more of a membership points program and no longer a tier-based elite status program.

Earning double points after 10 nights (you receive a lump sum bonus after your 10th / 20th / 30th etc night, doubling the points earned on the previous 10 stays) in a year is the nearest it gets to rewarding regular guests.

The more I think about it, the more I find ‘double points’ to be a clever idea.  Anyone with 7-8 nights would have a very big double points carrot dangling in front of them to get to 10.

Redemption options

The scheme is sensibly structured and accepts that a small footprint means that most members will struggle to earn a large number of points.

You cannot see the redemption price list without signing up and logging in.  As well as free nights and room upgrades, M&C also offers redemptions, club lounge access, food and drinks vouchers, free laundry and spa treatments.

At the earning rate of 10 points per $1 of room spend, you would need to spend $1,200 to get a $50 food and beverage voucher.  This is slightly better than under the previous scheme, and it appears that the redemption has decreased in cost. Of course, if you manage to spend more than 10 nights yearly in My Millennium properties you get double points, so the cost-benefit calculation changes.

Room redemptions are based directly on the cost of the room you want.  I ran a few examples and it works out at roughly 0.4p per point, which is better than the 0.2p per point under the pre-2015 M&C Loyalty Club scheme.

This means that redemption opportunities appear to be more evenly priced, with a 0.4p per point value on food and beverage vouchers as well as free rooms. Given that you get the same financial return, you can choose to spend your points in whichever way you wish without consideration for differing valuations.

If you earn 10 points worth 0.4p each (4p in total) for every $1 spent on your room, you are getting a return of around 5% on your room rate. The rate increases substantially if you spend more than 10 nights a year in M&C hotels, since your points balance is doubled.

This rate of return is comparable to other leading hotel programmes.  However, the Millennium & Copthorne network is considerably smaller and it is much harder to get additional bonuses. M&C does not have a co-branded credit card, so it’s impossible to boost your points balance without ‘heads in beds’.  This means that, in practice, My Millenium point are less valuable because it is much more difficult to both earn and redeem them.

Can you convert points in or out?

No.  It is not possible to convert your points into airline miles.  You also cannot convert any credit card or other points into My Millennium points.

You CAN earn airline miles instead of points – see below.

Can you earn airline miles instead of loyalty points?

Millennium & Copthorne has a number of airline partnerships, although they do NOT work with Avios or Virgin Flying Club.

There are no relevant partnerships with UK airlines. However, they do work with United, American Airlines, Delta, Etihad, Qatar Airways, Singapore Airlines, Oman Air and more. Details of their other airline partnerships can be found here.

Conclusion

Unless you are working at a client based near a Millennium or Copthorne property, it is unlikely that My Millennium will become a key programme for you. 

For occasional stays, you are unlikely to be able to get good value out of your points and are likely to end up with an orphaned balance.  I would recommend taking airline miles instead, or even booking via Hotels.com to earn Hotels.com Rewards credit (we explain why we like Hotels.com Rewards here).

If you do have regular stays, Millennium & Copthorne has some high quality hotels in its portfolio and you may be able to leverage a run of stays at the Copthorne Sheffield into something more glamorous elsewhere.

Hotel offers update – December 2021:

Want to earn more hotel points?  Click here to see our complete list of promotions from the major hotel chains or use the ‘Hotel Offers’ link in the menu bar at the top of the page.

Want to buy hotel points? There is currently a special offer running with IHG Rewards (80% bonus to 4th January 2022) and World of Hyatt (30% discount, equivalent to a 43% bonus, to 30th December 2021).