Originally Posted by
imgonnafly
i'm surprised y'all are getting credit when not showing up. i did this many years ago, and after 7 "meetings" the property told me the program required me to show up, and since it was in a different state, they just refunded my other meetings. it was $50/meeting so a great deal, and i think i got 7 or 8 of them in. enough to rollover, get me 2 years platinum, and make me lifetime platinum w my regular stays by the time it all expired.
Just like each of us choose what we do, so do the properties. Some have higher ethics than others. Booking meetings means revenue for the property. The cost of granting the status costs them very little, especially since they won't likely be called upon to deliver program benefits. I'm not saying bending the rules from time to time isn't appropriate, but some will be sticklers, some are just plain ignorant, and there's everything in between.
It would be nice if there was a consistent delivery across all the properties, but that's not going to happen. Even if all the properties were owned by Marriott and run by Marriott staff, someone is going to figure an angle to try to get ahead of their peers. Independent thinkers are what made the programs exist and got us here. FT allows us to share that information and exploit the weaker points and identify the strong players.