Sheraton Hotels Partner with MLB for Rewards Program, Highlights Growing Trend

Major League Baseball signed Sheraton Hotels & Resorts and Starwood Preferred Guest as its official hotel and hotel loyalty program.

Starting with the 2016 MLB season, Sheraton guests and SPG members will get complementary access to MLB.TV and the MLB Network. SPG members can also redeem points for tickets to the World Series and meet-and-greets with players.

Starwood’s reward program offers tickets to other sporting events, including tickets to Rangers and Lakers games. The company said they’ve found that sporting events are “a huge passion point” for their customers.

More and more, hotels are trying to give guests a special and unique experience in exchange for their loyalty points – and that’s important to millennial travelers, who could make up more than 50 percent of the market by 2020.  A recent study from Colloquy revealed one-third of millennials want their loyalty programs to be fun – compared to 26% of the general public.

The “Customer Loyalty in 2015 & Beyond” study said 63% of millennials have joined a loyalty program in the past year – giving hotels the incentive to up the ante on reward programs.

— Jessica Montevago

Pic: Keith Allison