1yr is ludicrous and a slap in the face.

I.e.

You stay at a Marriott enough to earn Platinum (75 days/stays). At a decent corp rate of $100 (plus tax) that's $7500. If you're in their rewards pgm, that's 10pts/$. That's 75,000 pts. Depending on where you stay that could be as many as 10 free nights at a Category 1 Marriott hotel. Say you use the Marriott CC, that's another 5pts/$ or a grand total of 112,500pts. That doesn't include the 25% more pts once you hit gold elite(50 nights), or the 20% you get once you hit silver(10 nights). The bonus is roughly 14,250 pts. That's 126,750. Add in the 500 pts you'd for receive for checking in for your stay after being reaching Gold Elite. Using 3 night stays, that's 8 * 500 miles after you reach 50 nights.

That's ~18 FREE nights, not counting special pt earning incentives given...that are ripped away from you simply b/c it's been ONE YEAR???

I'm not sure how it's OK to screw one of their best customers in as little as 365 days. I couldn't care less if they are private or public....it's a policy/rule/etc that is totally idiotic.

I used Marriott as my example simply b/c I'm familiar w/ their pgm. I don't know for sure if they will deactivate within 1yr. But using it to extrapolate since a few blogs I've read rate Marriott pts fairly low on the "hotel pts quality" totem pole...I figure the example only gets worse w/ other properties.