Ten hotels, owned by a sovereign wealth fund
Dorchester Collection is owned by the Brunei Investment Agency, an arm of Brunei's Ministry of Finance. The Sultan of Brunei acquired The Dorchester and The Beverly Hills Hotel in 1987 and ownership passed to the agency in 1991; the collection itself was formally established in 2006.
It is by some distance the smallest portfolio we work with: ten hotels in total. Three in the UK, with The Dorchester, 45 Park Lane and Coworth Park; two in Paris, Le Meurice and Hôtel Plaza Athénée; two in Italy, Hotel Eden in Rome and Hotel Principe di Savoia in Milan; two in Los Angeles, The Beverly Hills Hotel and Hotel Bel-Air; and The Lana in Dubai.
Diamond Club is not a guest loyalty scheme
The name misleads people, so it is worth stating plainly. Dorchester Collection does not run a points program for guests, and the Diamond Club is the program through which the hotels admit travel advisors. There is nothing for you to join, no card and no number to quote at the desk.
Because there is no loyalty currency in the first place, there is no trade-off to weigh. Where Diamond Club overlaps another program on the same reservation, the hotel honours one set of benefits rather than both.
A portfolio small enough to know room by room
With ten hotels rather than a thousand, the program operates at a level of specificity the large chains cannot match. The upgrade benefit is applied on a defined basis at each property, and a handful of room categories at specific hotels sit outside it.
That is genuinely useful rather than a limitation. It means we can tell you before you book which room type is worth taking at which hotel, instead of describing what the brand does on average across hundreds of properties.
What happens after you enquire
You pay the hotel's own published rate. Dorchester Collection pays the advisor commission from its margin, which is what funds the amenities, so there is no fee or markup reaching you.
We flag the reservation to the hotel ahead of arrival with your arrival time, the occasion if there is one, and any preference worth knowing. At a ten-hotel collection that note is read by someone who has time to act on it. Start an enquiry or send an existing booking and we will tell you honestly whether it is worth moving.