• The Wall Street Journal, Wednesday, December 26, 2007 12 PM

Major hotel companies such as Starwood, Global Hyatt, Hilton, and InterContinental are offering customers who are enrolled in their loyalty programs the option to spend their points on an a wide array of unique experiences--from weightless space flight to cooking lessons from star chefs.

Michael Soares and his wife used 124,000 Starwood points to spend one night with John Travolta and the cast of the movie "Hairspray" at the film's New York premiere. The hotel companies say that only a small percentage of their customers have enough points to spend on such experiences, but that number is increasing.

Hotel officials say that allowing people to use piles of points for movie premieres and concert passes is not a ploy to get guests to burn points on something other than hotel rooms. Instead, it is intended to create more loyalty and word-of-mouth buzz around the programs. Customers are "really craving more experiences that are out of the norm, and we want them to be able to use their points to be able to do whatever they want," says Adam Burke, Hilton's senior vice president for customer loyalty.

Read the whole story at The Wall Street Journal »