Pulling back the curtain on Fine Hotels & Resorts (very slightly)

I was curious when 2018 bookings would be available for Amex Fine Hotels & Resorts properties, so I did some poking around online. On the one hand, it’s annoying that FHR bookings cut off on 12/31, since many of those same hotels are booking into 2018 through other channels, leaving less overall inventory available for FHR stays. On the other hand, I understand that Amex renews the program annually, which theoretically keeps the overall quality level up by adding new hotels and kicking out others that have gotten complacent.

In any case, since I always plan so far ahead, I was curious about some dates in early 2018, although I couldn’t find a firm date online when the new crop would be announced. However, I did find a PDF explaining the application process, which was kind of interesting to me. For instance, I didn’t realize that Amex benchmarks Platinum and Centurion cardmember spend by geographic region in order to determine whether or not to add new hotels. (Although, typing that out it doesn’t really seem groundbreaking.) Anyway, because I’m interested in this stuff, I thought it was neat to take a peek behind the scenes to see how Amex manages new entrants into the program. And from what I could find, it looks like the 2018 FHR program will be announced sometime in June, at which point I imagine bookings will open although I don’t know when bookings will open up.

Update: in the “why the hell not” department, here’s the info on applying for The Hotel Collection. Does anyone else give a crap about this?

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