Introducing: The New Prince of Travel Platinum Membership

We’re thrilled to announce the launch of the revamped Prince of Travel Platinum Membership, designed to provide more value to our members, including an exciting all-new benefit that we’re introducing for the first time.

In this article, I’ll share with you the exciting features of the new Platinum Membership, as well as a special Summer 2023 promotion that you won’t want to miss.

The New Prince of Travel Platinum Membership

Prince of Travel Platinum Membership is available at $25 (USD)/month for monthly subscriptions, or $240 (USD)/year for annual subscriptions (a 20% discount on the monthly price).

As part of the 2023 refresh of our membership offering, we’re streamlining the benefits of Platinum Membership, phasing out some benefits that we weren’t able to consistently deliver in the past, and adding an exciting new benefit that will offer members significant value when travelling the world. 

The full list of Platinum Membership benefits is as follows:

• Club Lounge: Discord chat group with other members and the Prince of Travel team.
• Hotel Crowns: Stay 10 nights at hotels booked with Prince of Travel, and earn a free night equal to the average value of your 10 nights stayed.
• Happy Hour: Discussion and Q&A session once every month to catch up on all the news, deals, and promotions in the travel space.
  
• Learning Sessions: Learning sessions held twice per month on topics chosen in the Club Lounge.
  
• Miles & Pints: Regular in-person gatherings across cities nationwide, drinks included!
  
• Consulting Discount: 10% off all Points Consulting bookings.
  
• Preferred Pricing: Get discounts to Prince of Travel products, services, and events. 
  
• Priority Access: Get early access to Prince of Travel products, services, and events. 
• Content Vault: A master spreadsheet of every Prince of Travel article and video for easy reference.
  
• Bag Tags: Receive Prince of Travel luggage tags to show off your Platinum Membership when you fly.
  
• Ad-Free Browsing: Browse the website uninterrupted by advertisements.
  

While most of the benefits are remaining the same as before, I’ll share some details below on how the Learning Sessions, Miles & Pints, and Consulting Discount are evolving going forward, as well as the details of the all-new benefit that I’m most excited about: Hotel Crowns. 

Hotel Crowns

Feeling downbeat about Hotels.com Rewards phasing out their “Stay 10, Get 1 Free” program? Not to worry: Prince of Travel Platinum Membership will carry on the torch with our Hotel Crowns benefit.

For every hotel night booked with Prince of Travel at preferred partner rates, you’ll earn a Crown. Earn 10 Crowns, and you’ll be able to redeem them for one free night equal to the average value of the 10 nights you’ve stayed. 

Effectively, by being a Platinum Member booking your hotel stays with us, you’ll be able to unlock a 10% return on your hotel expenses by racking up the Hotel Crowns!

Be sure to look over the full terms and conditions of the Hotel Crowns Program, and then head to our booking page to submit a hotel booking request for your next trip! 

Learning Sessions

Prince of Travel Platinum Members have derived a lot of value from our regular Learning Sessions since they were first introduced last summer, spanning all sorts of topics from advanced round-the-world bookings to car rental discount codes.

Going forward, Learning Sessions will continue at a pace of twice per month, and will be hosted by a mix of Prince of Travel team members and external guests whom we’ll invite on from time to time. 

Learning Sessions can be watched live at their scheduled time, in which case you have the opportunity to engage live with the topic. Alternatively, Platinum Members are sent replay links to all the Learning Sessions, allowing them to watch at their own leisure after the session.

Miles & Pints

We’ve been thrilled to have hosted quite a few successful Miles & Pints get-togethers since we first introduced them last year, including events in Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, Toronto, and Edmonton. 

There’s plenty more cities we’d like to hit up, though admittedly we’ve found it challenging to keep up with our original plan of hosting these on a monthly basis. Therefore, we’ll be dialling these back to a roughly quarterly schedule, while aiming to put on as many gatherings throughout the year and across as many Canadian cities as possible.

At every Miles & Pints event, Platinum Members will receive complimentary finger food and one drink ticket to be exchanged for a drink of their choice. We’re looking forward to announcing a few upcoming Miles & Pints events very shortly! 

Consulting Discount

Lastly, we’ve made a change to the Consulting Discount benefit: while Platinum Members previously received 25% off a Points Consulting session once every six months, we’ve changed this to 10% off a Points Consulting session anytime, with no limits on how often you can use the benefit.

Summer 2023 Promo: Sign Up or Renew, Get Extra Perks!

To celebrate the launch of our new Platinum Membership, we’re offering a Summer 2023 promotion for new signups and renewals. 

If you sign up for or renew your Platinum Membership on a monthly or annual subscription through July 31, 2023 (including existing annual members whose membership periods span July 2023), you’ll receive the following bundle of extra perks:

• 5% rebate on your first hotel stay booked with Prince of Travel (book by September 30, 2023; stay by September 30, 2024)
• An extra drink ticket at your first Miles & Pints event
• A complimentary one-month Awayz Premium membership to help you identify the best opportunities to redeem your points

These benefits are valid for as long as you maintain your active Platinum Membership – and yes, the 5% rebate can be stacked with earning Hotel Crowns. 😉

If you aren’t a Platinum Member yet, go ahead and visit our membership page to sign up before July 31 to take advantage of these extra perks.

What’s Happening to Gold & Royal Platinum Membership?

You may have noticed that as part of this relaunch, our previous Gold and Royal Platinum membership tiers have been phased out, and we’ll only be offering a single tier of Platinum Membership going forward. I’d like to share with you some of the rationale behind this change.

When Prince of Travel membership was first introduced on Patreon in November 2020, it was very much designed to be a patronage-oriented product – a means to support me and the work I was doing as an individual creator at the time.

The three-tier model was well-aligned with this purpose, allowing members to choose their level of support and receive different levels of benefits, extra content, and access to me and the team depending on which membership tier they signed up for.

Over the past few years, though, as Prince of Travel has grown, we’ve determined that a patronage-oriented membership model is no longer a great fit. Rather than counting on our audience’s support, we’re focused on building world-class content, products, and services that serve travellers in meaningful ways and offer tangible value along every traveller’s journey.

With that in mind, we’ve found it more challenging to balance the varying needs of three different tiers of memberships, and so we’ve determined that the best way forward is to phase out the Gold and Royal Platinum tiers and streamline our membership product with only one tier going forward. 

Royal Platinum members will be transitioned to Platinum Membership, with membership fees automatically pro-rated. Likewise, Gold members will be transitioned to our free membership with pro-rated refunds offered, and I’d invite you to give Platinum Membership a try along with our Summer 2023 promo.

I’d like to place on record my appreciation for all of our members who’ve been with us since we first launched it in November 2020. Whether you were a Gold, Platinum, or Royal Platinum member, you’ve played a significant part in this chapter of our story, and I’m looking forward to keeping the good times rolling with a more value-oriented Platinum Membership offering going forward. 

Conclusion