That assumption falls apart the moment you look at last July.
Pull 15 returning guests from last year and look at them one by one. Ask yourself two simple questions: Did this guest pay at today’s rates? And did it make the week easier or harder?
You already know the names.
Some returning guests book at your current rates and follow your policies. Others expect old pricing and extra flexibility. When you do not separate them, you end up discounting peak inventory out of habit and flexing policies more than you would for someone new.
Where Loyalty Starts to Cost You
You know this guest.
They have stayed every year since 2019. They reference what they paid back then. They expect the same peak dates and the same flexibility because “we have always done it this way.”
Because they have been loyal, you make exceptions.
You hold peak dates longer than you would for someone new. You hesitate to raise the rate to match your current pricing. You approve a late checkout without stepping back to consider the tradeoff.
High effort usually looks ordinary:
Several pre-arrival emails about small details
Pushback on updated cancellation terms
Room changes after assignment
Extra coordination with housekeeping or breakfast service
A review that compares this stay to how it used to be
None of it feels like a big deal.
Over time, it reduces what you earn per stay and increases back-and-forth for you or your team. It also trains you to treat premium dates as negotiable.
You still made money.
The question is whether it was worth the energy.
The Returning Guests Who Make You Stronger
There is another kind of returning guest.
They book at your current rates without negotiation. They understand how you operate. They do not need every policy explained again. They may not always pay your highest rate, but they book fairly and follow your systems.
In seasonal markets, some returning guests are the reason you survive November. They are steady midweek or shoulder-season bookings that bring stability when things slow down.
Not every guest who paid less is a problem.
The point is not to clamp down on everything. The point is to see where you are bending and why.
This Week’s Action
Pull 15 returning guests and sort them in your mind:
Paid well and low effort
Paid well but high effort
Paid less and low effort
Paid less and high effort
For example:
Paid less and high effort might look like a discounted peak weekend, six pre-arrival emails, a late checkout request, and housekeeping juggling room changes.
Paid well and low effort might look like a fair midweek booking, two emails total, no exceptions, and a smooth departure.
When “paid well” feels unclear, compare the rate to what a new guest would have paid for the same stay. When you discounted a peak date out of habit, that tells you something. When someone filled a quiet midweek at a fair rate and followed your policies, that tells you something too.
Then ask one simple question:
When this name shows up, do you think “great” or “here we go”?
That answer will tell you more than your repeat percentage ever will.
What To Do With What You See
When you notice that a meaningful share of your returning guests are low money and high effort, you do not need a new loyalty program.
You may need firmer boundaries.
Start by removing automatic peak discounts for returning guests. When someone wants a peak weekend, they pay the current rate.
History is not a discount code.
Look at where peak pricing has become negotiable. Look at where exceptions are automatic instead of considered. Look at whether returning guests are being held to the same policies as new ones.
At the same time, protect the guests who pay fair rates, follow your systems, and stabilize your low periods. Those are the returning guests worth designing around.
Sunday challenged the idea that arrivals are the main signal of growth. Monday focused on increasing repeat. This is the hotel and host layer underneath both.
Repeat rate is not the strategy.
Loyalty that lowers your standards is not loyalty.
Over the years, I’ve turned away repeat guests. It’s uncomfortable. But I learned that loyalty only works when it respects the current standards of the business. When it doesn’t, you start paying for familiarity in ways you may not notice at first.
Audit your returning guests this week. Then decide who your business is built to support.
If you want to dig deeper into what actually keeps guests from coming back in the first place, I wrote about it here.
Wow, I guess everything is a negotiation! "Loyalty that lowers your standards is not loyalty." Good solid questions to ask staff and yourself on return guests. Maybe that's why Uber also has the drivers rate the customers--do people behave better when they know they're being rated? Someone years said, 'there's always that 2 percent.' Maybe that number is higher these days.
Turning away a repeat guest because they’re high effort is absolutely painful. But often needed. If we can only hope for more wonderful & low effort guests than the high effort ones.