I work for Accor Advantage Plus, as a 'loyalty consultant' so here's my perspective on some of the issues raised here. The membership is a loyalty club, in the same way that coffee shops stamp a card and give you every 6th cup free or whatever, they reward you for preferring their hotels over the competition.

Some hotel groups have a loyalty system that is free to join but only offer limited or restrictive benefits. Accor asks a fee for their membership and in doing so, almost guarantees themselves that each and every member will make use of it some way or other. If an Advantage Plus member goes to an Accor hotel restaurant, that restaurant isn't losing 50% of their revenue, they are gaining a customer that they probably wouldn't have had without Advantage Plus.

Some people seem to feel as though the free night is a ruse to get you to buy and that Accor tries to make it difficult to use. With the sheer number of members out there, of course booking a week or two in advance is going to meet with difficulty. The free night is included to make it easy to get value from the membership, but don't expect to book it for the holiday you're planning the following week.

All in all, the membership CAN be fantastic value, but it's not a magic bullet that will deposit money into your bank account every time you think about going on a holiday.