Originally Posted by
Michilander
Can't, for the life of me, figure out how Marriott figures it would be better off if we did short stays instead of long stays.
This year, as has been true for a number of years now, we will get enough nights that both of us would make Platinum if we split them. And, we stay at a lot of full service hotels. We spend a goodly chunk of change at Marriott every year. Why in the world would they want us to change our behavior? Seems to me that they would want to encourage us to continue our current behavior.
Well, as you can see, these promos are not particularly targeted, so there's no way they can be encouraging your current behavior if they don't know what your current behavior is (the designers of this one-size-fits-all promo).
In other words, i didn't meant they're traying to change your specific behavior, just that they're designed to get people to stay more.
And you're missing a point about long stays vs short stays. Only some smarter people like you and I figure out that you max out stay promos with short stays. Many other people just don't do the math, and so don't ever shorten their stays (or even think about it).
So Marriott doesn't want you do shorter stays; Marriott wants you to do longer stays so that it doesn't have to give as many points! They're hoping you
don't figure out (or can't act upon figuring out) that "hotel hopping" maximizes your points in this promo. Me, I
will "hotel hop" through this promo, simply because I'm already "hotel hopping" through stay-based promos at other hotel programs this summer. (And my only big vacation this summer is in a quite expensive place, so all my hotels there are on points anyway.)
I belong to lots of hotel programs, including some where every single promo is
always stay-based, so I'm used to doing my "everyday" stays (where I'm out of the hotel all day anyway) as 1-night stays, "hotel hopping", when not staying at Marriott properties. Yes, on some vacation trips I do otherwiise, but my whole summer cannot be one long vacation.
I doubt Marriott designs their summer promos suddenly
only or
primarily for vacationers, while clearly not designing their MegaBonus promos the rest of the year only or primarily for vacationers.
More likely they're looking at this as a short promo. And keep in mind, the "short" version of the MegaBonus has
always been stay-based (though typically earning a free night cert rather than bonus points); it's only the "long" version of the MegaBonus that tends to be night-based. It's just that Marriott Gold/Plats usually get the "long" version of MegaBonus, but in this case there's only one "short" version of the Summer 2016 bonus no matter who you are, just because the calendar period of this promo is much shorter than most other Marriott promos.