Originally Posted by
JBord
I'm not following the logic here. When one company owns more of the market, they have less competition. In this case, SPG has effectively been eliminated so that's less incentive for Marriott to decrease prices. I think there's virtually no chance there will be any kind of brand or category decrease.
As for my opinion, they will likely stay the same, with a few adjustments where a hotel was over or under priced. Then you'll see the normal annual changes, which tend to be mostly increases (at least for the properties I seem to care about
).
I didn't follow the OP's logic, either. More properties means more competition for my award points???
I'm not one who puts much credence in the 'less competition' argument. There's marginally less competition among loyalty programs with SPG eventually eliminated but Marriott's total share of rooms is still far from an oligopoly position worldwide (or U.S.-wide). I've been a Hilton Diamond, stayed with plenty of IC, used Airbnb... and can again if Marriott gets stupid.
As for re-pricing, SPG and Marriott have been repricing hotel awards at hundreds of properties each year. Marriott will continue to do that. I don't see the merger of three FF programs significantly - significantly - changing that. The ratio of 1 SPG point = 3 MR points has been established.