April 21, 2020

COVID-19: Hotels Are Offering Buy Now, Stay Later Bonds That Increase In Value 60 Days From Now

A new public relations and marketing campaign is looking to help out hotels during the tough financial times brought on by COVID-19. It’s also looking to hook people up with a pretty good deal.

Called Buy Now, Stay Later, the campaign hopes to provide a win-win for both travelers and hoteliers by selling what they’re calling “hotel bonds,” similar in purpose and procedure to a treasury bond.

“As the hotel industry faces unprecedented challenges due to coronavirus,” the campaign’s web site says, “We encourage travel enthusiasts from around the world to help support our hotel friends.”

The idea is simple. Buy a $100 “hotel bond” now, and in sixty days it will mature into a $150 credit. For every $100 bond you buy, you’ll gain that extra $50 after sixty days. Multiple bonds can be purchased from the same hotel. If you buy five one-hundred dollar bonds today, it will become worth $750 sometime in June, for example.

“The Buy Now, Stay Later initiative is meant to help your favorite hotels support their housekeepers, bartenders, concierges – and everyone who keeps the hotel running,” the campaign says.

It’s not hard to see the appeal and purpose here. Right now, hotels and resorts are struggling, many of them closed down and unsure of the future. Travelers are in the same boat, unclear about when they’ll be back on the road, financially and logistically. The bond program helps everyone - hotels get some much needed cash and bookings now, and travelers get a deal down the road to cash in on whenever things get back up and running.

Currently, the program, which was started by Lion & Lamb Communications in New York, has about 30 hotels across the globe offering bonds on the site, including Nayara Springs in Costa Rica, Georgetown Suites in Washington D.C., Las Terrazas Resort in Belize, the Hotel Julian in Chicago, and the Hotel Providence Paris, among others in the Caribbean, New York, and Mexico.

The program is open to any property in the world, and has open enrollment at the moment - that is, more hotels are likely to sign on as we move forward. Interested travelers should check the site for the list of current hotels, and check back to see when others are added.

While the web site aggregates the participating hotels, the bonds are still bought directly from the hotel itself (not through a third party). The purchasing process is rather rudimentary. Each hotel listing has a “Get Your Bond” button that allows you to email the hotel and ask to purchase a bond. Be sure to check with the hotel when purchasing about its specific policies regarding the use and maturation of the bonds, as there could be slight differences in policies between properties. For example, some may be applicable to the room rate, some to food and beverage, some to all of the above, etc. Also, while the maturation date is clear (60 days), be sure to ask about any expiration date.

Hotels interested in joining the campaign and offering bonds can sign up by emailing travel@lalcomm.com or fill out the form on the website.

Copyright 2020 Forbes Media LLC. All rights reserved. From https://www.forbes.com. By Will McGough, Contributor.

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