While humanistically admirable, your talk to loyalty is sadly anachronistic. Loyalty does not exist in capitalistic markets and with faceless corporations.

Starwood is out to make as much money as it can while trying to optimize the balance between short-term profit and long-term business model sustainability.

Your loyalty means nothing. Their loyalty is nonexistent. Every perk you receive as a Plat member is a calculated move to retain your business and your spend. There is no personal goodwill in the gesture. And so, any loyalty you gallantly show to the Starwood brand is misplaced. Loyalty by definition means "unwavering in devotion". Would you be loyal if SPG jacked prices up by 200%.

I am not trying to paint a picture of SPG being more "evil" or business-like than any other hotel chain. I am saying that people have all the right to complain about weak promos. Promos aren't there as sacrificial goodwill, they exist because they are strategically beneficial to SPG's strategic positioning.

If anything, complaining on FT serves the dual purpose of getting our human frustration off our chests as well as providing an early signal to
SPG that many of us are unhappy with the long blackout list. Information is helpful the promo powers that be at SPG, even if it is negative information.

Of course at the end of the day, you have to put your money where your mouth is. Customers need to speak with their wallets and hope it has a financial impact on SPG in order to influence changes in the future. And that there is basic Econ 101. Supply and demand. Only SPG knows how elastic demand is. Hopefully we can make SPG leadership realize it is more elastic than they originally though through our actions. But I personally remain skeptical and pessimistic: SPG has more data on promo effectiveness than we can imagine and so this promo was likely well thought out. Either they don't foresee that much loss of business or they don't care and are on a strategic path that is easing back on the richness of the SPG promo program with the bottom line in mind.