Originally Posted by
bhrubin
Those who were able to manufacture status before cannot do so as easily now--and I'm sorry for them,. But they aren't paying as much as others, and those who pay more are the ones who the program should most reward. The new program seems to do that. The Hilton program doesn't even come close.
The new Marriott program isn't perfect..but it's pretty good so far.
This is one of the key changes here to me, whilst in the old Marriott programme the stated requirements seemed high compared to SPG, given the much larger Marriott portfolio and also multiple ways of earning elite nights / status without actually staying in hotels I think it was probably just as easy, if not easier, for a US resident to make Marriott Platinum than SPG Platinum. The new programme has, IMO, taken a fairly sensible approach by reducing the nights required to earn Platinum status but also reducing the number of 'backdoor' ways of doing this, which I'm sure were great if you lived in the US but basically made the Marriott programme relatively unattractive to anyone based outside of the US. I imagine the new combined programme will have more appeal in Europe / APAC than the old Marriott Rewards did.