Hi,
I just wanted to share a story with you how priceline bookings, giving elite benefits to customers who booked though priceline, the tips & tricks from this forum, status challenges and crediting 10 nights for events - all the things I wondered if Marriott would loose money with it - actually paid out for them (and me) in my case:

About four or five years ago, I started to use priceline and got some Marriott hotel stays with it. I paid from 60 - 150 USD for a night. Before that I usually stayed at Holiday Inns or NH hotels. When I realized how much more I liked Marriott / Starwood / Hilton hotels a year later, I changed my terms of services for my customers: I would charge them a flat fee for my hotel stays (150 USD a night) and choose the property myself. Made my life a lot easier for booking hotels and charging my customers for travel, because this skipped all the getting my hotel approved by the customer, having the rate I got approved sold out while waiting for approval ... sending in copies of the bills later - now they'll instantly know what they have to pay and I am free to choose, sometimes I make 50 USD on a stay, sometimes I pay 50 USD extra but in the end it's nice and easy for both sides, I have nicer hotels, my customers have a very fit and happy consultant who has used a great gym for exercise the night before and everyone is happy. So first of all, priceline made my life easier and healthier...

I was just wondering if selling rooms on priceline wouldn't be a loss for Marriott, but in the end I thought they must have a very clever marketing & strategic revenue optimizing department, so they wouldn't do it if it wouldn't be worth it for them.

Then two things started to happen: First of all, I was intrigued by the elite benefits: being proud to have status, but also getting upgrades, lounge access etc. Marriott's marketing did a great job in getting the message to me via the website, flyers in the hotels etc. I also figured that free breakfast for every stay would be worth 800 USD a year for 20 priceline stays in Europe, so if I could make gold status to get free breakfast every time even on priceline stays, I could get creative and spend a few dollars on reaching that status level. The second thing I realized was that about half of the time I wanted to book a stay at a Marriott, it just wasn't available on priceline for the city and day I needed it or I couldn't control which hotel I'd get for the city, date, zone and star level so I would end up at another hotel but not the one I wanted.

Last year I read about the platinum challenge, took it and missed the goal (it was nights instead of stays back then, if it would already have been stays I would have made it). This got me hooked because I like the executive lounges so much. When I took the challenge I was feeling a bit bad - I didn't know that I would almost meet the challenge goal when I started, so I felt like I took advantage of them (and I still believe they should only offer it to silver/gold members or only give the "trial status" after the first 5 stays or nights during the challenge, to prevent people who never stay at Marriotts otherwise from taking up lounge space and room upgrades from real elite customers during their one vacation stay). But anyway, I wanted to reach at least gold status, I like small adventures in travel planning to maximize miles and status and the challenge got me hooked. I booked real Marriott rates from their website from the beginning of my platinum challenge, and figured I might even make it (and I would have if it would have been stays instead of nights).

I also read about the 10 nights for an event on flyertalk. Since I wanted to do 2 events a year anyway (offer payed seminars) I just booked a Marriott. I had done a few hundred seminars in NH and Mercure hotels for other companies and like events at the other hotels, but Marriott seemed to be even a bit better , also a bit more expensive and they would credit 10 elite nights for each events. So when it was time to book an event, I choose Marriott. I hosted the event, I did the marketing, and I filled 4 of 10 seats. With four people it was OK for me and I think a good deal for Marriott: I had to pay for 10 people anyway for the whole day (conference room, lunch, drinks...). I figured I would make gold this year with my real Marriott stays booked on the Marriott website and my events. I was right. And the platinum challenge got me so excited about platinum that I booked two more events (real whole day events with real people and a 1200 USD bill each, but actually I did the two extra ones just to achieve platinum status).

Long story short: Because it all started with priceline, continued with the platinum challenge and events do count as ten nights, I booked all of my stays at the Marriott website this year for 150 - 400 USD each (except 2 of them where the price was really high and I managed to get a great deal on priceline). I stayed with Marriott a lot more often than the years before. And I had 4 events with just 21 attendees in total, just a conference room with tea breaks and lunch, paying about 5.000 USD total for them.

I am very happy because events at Marriott hotels are great, I love staying there, I can sleep heavenly in their bed, usually they have nice gyms for exercise and there are a lot more small reasons why I like them. With my status I'll get lounge access = free water and fruits, free breakfast and even a nice dinner (at least in most countries I visit) when I arrive before 7 PM. Let's say I save 30 USD for breakfast, 10 USD for water and an average of 25 USD for dinner (50 USD every second time where I don't miss it) for each stay, this will be an 65 USD advantage over another hotel where I do not get elite benefits. Because of a complicated way to calculate tax and deduct able expenses (I won't bore you with he details here) in my country, I'll save another 20 USD in taxes. So staying in a Marriott hotel will save me 85 USD compared to another hotel, so the higher prices compared to lower quality brands actually aren't that much higher.

I might get away a little cheaper by booking through priceline, but I just don't do it because want to be sure I'll get a room at the Marriott, I want to requalify for status the next year and I want to collect the Marriott reward points to exchange them for a nice one week vacation stay and 120.000 airline miles after 2 years.

Finally I can understand why Marriott allows things such as priceline, elite nights for events and status challenges, and why it pays for them in the end. So here I am, booking the Marriott rates from the Marriott website and doing events with Marriott, with me being happy, Marriott actually making money from my stays and priceline being left out.

Cheers,
zap