On an earlier thread I remarked that the jump experienced by members from silver to Gold or straight to Plat was due to an inability to "rollover" nights on a computer in the way that we humans would do so, causing the "rolling calendar" to kick in...

Hence a silver with 43 nights rolled over 33 nights which became 33 bonus nights in 2010... when added to the rolling calendar previous total of 43 nights, that made a total of 76 nights, and one newly minted Plat.

I felt this was overall a good idea, engendering more loyalty from regular stayers who achived a pretty impressive total (one that would achieve middle or top status in other chains) and Marriott would hopefully see these guests trying to maintain status by directing more of their stays Marriotts way in 2010... Others saw this as dilution of the status causing more competition for scarce upgrades and CL facilities. Whilst I do see that point of view, there has been little short of a devastating fall in hotel stays and a terrible fall in rates across all brands, and this in turn means with less people staying, less pressure on available resources, but much more pressure on cashflow.

It seems now Marriott has decided this was all an error, that the rolling calendar Gold and Plat bumps are slowly being undone and that, apparently, the rolling calendar element of the scheme (never a stated benefit anyway) is being done away with, since the rolling calendar software seems incapable of distinguishing between nights rolled over from last year and those physically earned this, hence causing these bumps.

This thread may well have many more entries yet to come