Originally Posted by
Counsellor
...but the lack of guaranteed lounge access and free breakfast easily tip the scales when I have a choice of either Marriott FS or Sheraton/Westin.
And so far as actual room upgrades are concerned, my percentage with Marriott as a Platinum is much higher than my percentage with Starwood as a Gold.
First, I do like Marriott (and I'm a LT Plat with well more than 1000 nights in Marriotts.)
But I do want to make sure we give out correct info and are comparing the same things:
- An SPG Plat is guaranteed lounge access (if the hotel has a lounge). (Though a smaller % of SPG hotels do have a lounge than FS Marriotts.)
- An SPG Plat is guaranteed free breakfast at every hotel 7 days a week. Marriott used to have a winner on this, but Starwood leaped them.
- Comparing Marriott's top tier status (Plat - 75 nights) to SPG's mid-tier status (10 stays or 25 nights) is not even close to an apples-to-apples comparison. I do believe most tend find that SPG's top tier (Plat - 25 stays or 50 nights) will tend to provide better upgrades than Marriott's top tier.
Now if you want to compare the mid-tier status on both, I'd agree that Marriott Gold blows SPG Gold out of the water. But for virtually the same amount of stays/nights, I could get SPG Plat rather than Marriott Gold.