Originally Posted by
yosithezet
What makes this Loews offer pointless is that it is coming at the end of December 2008. By now people have mostly qualified. So all the folks that worked hard to qualify now see that they didn't need to work so hard.
Two points. First, Loews did tell people much earlier in the year. They recently changed their program around a bit and notified everyone then that this would be happening.
Secondly, the Loews program and the Starwood program are apples and oranges. The Loews program does not have any "point" accrual. It does have some very nice features like suite upgrades when the reservation is made rather than at check-in and $100 spending toward food and services for every stay. But until this recent change in the Loews program, once someone made an elite level there were at that level pretty much forever. I think Loews realized this was slowly making a very large number of permanant elites. I do believe that going forward, everyone has to meet certain stay requirements to keep their elite status moving forward.
So in reality, Loews is moving a little closer to the Starwood program by making their elites requalify every year. They just gave everyone an extra year's notice before doing so.