phltraveler

LTP and LTPP in the new MR program have minimal differences at this point. The overwhelming majority of people are going to balk on the 48 hour guarantee because the rack rates are ridiculous and 99.99% of people will either book a different Marriott or non-Marriott location with availability, travel on a different date, or not travel. 75% vs. 50% elite point bonus is nice if you're actively qualifying each year with real hotel spend but makes little difference on occasional leisure stays, certainly not enough for a lot of people to chase it. The Suite Night Awards are only for people who actively qualify in a given year, so none for lifetime, so no difference between LTP and LTPP there.

LTPP may be worth it later though:

1) In old MR, Plat Premier was an unlisted status that did code differently at the front desk (Platinum generally coded as P6, while Plat Premier Coded as X4. There is word that people who got Ambassadors in Marriott coded at M0. Before, neither Plat Premier nor Ambassador had any publicly known qualification criteria (Plat Premier was "top three percent" with no mentioned criteria, many believed it to be 120+ nights and some spend put through god knows what formula - I never found any consensus on the ambassador status, some people were really miffed to be Plat Premier and not get an ambassador). Now they're both going to be published levels at different qualification status. So while many hotels generally failed to recognize PP or Ambassador status differently than regular old Plat in old MR, now they will be published qualification levels, and hotels may give preferential treatment to higher status elites. This will remain to be seen. Particularly in regards to non-SNA upgrades (space available at check-in), Marriott may prioritize Plat Premier 100+ night + $20K over Plat Premier over Plat for suites.

2) In new MR, Plat Premier replaces old Plat, and new plat replaces Gold. I did get better treatment from properties going from Gold to Plat in the old program. Hotels are going to see both more plats and plat premiers under the new program. Going along with point #1 , the Plat Premier has a different level for active stay.

3) Marriott made LTPP grandfathered only in the new program. If there's barely any difference between LTP and LTPP, why limit it? LTPP doesn't get the SNAs anyways, so it's not like there's a substantial cost difference between LTP and LTPP status for Marriott. It's just 25% more points. Grandfathering only people with prior status creates a finite amount of LTPPs, which means come 2019 there will be a finite supply of LTPPs that will only decrease over time (people die and others might break MR terms and have their status revoked). Marriott has already set a line in the sand that this status is one thing and this status is another. Nothing prevents Marriott from adding benefits to PP (and therefore LTPP) and not adding them to Platinum in the future. Marriott has already indicated that RewardsPlus complimentary United Silver Elite Status will be for Plat Premier only, for instance. (Whether or not Delta, United, or both remain around for the Marriott crossover airline status is now questionable though). Nothing also prevents Marriott from removing benefits from Plat and not Plat Premier in the future either. I'm a cynic and I believe that MR will absorb the combined program, let any outrage die down,and at a later point will be differentiating plat/plat premier further.

Now again, the word is may. Marriott could keep the statuses minimally different long term, they could introduce even more levels above Plat Premier, they could backtrack later and eventually allow LTPP qualification after stopping eligibility in 2019. I strongly doubt these points, but they're all possible. There's a lot of maybes in the above though.

If I was short on the legacy MR Plat criteria of 750 nights and points were irrelevant, I would definitely consider "buying up" before the end of 2018 through Rewarding Events at $8/night. That would depend on how far behind I was - 10 nights (one meeting) is an easy decision. If it were 100, maybe not.

I'm kind of curious if rewarding events will be staying around because the new lifetime qualification criteria (for 2019 and beyond) is purely nights with no revenue (points) requirement, just total nights and years at status. It would make chasing lifetime status a lot more appealing, because you only need the credit card and one meeting [15 credit card nights + 10 nights from Rewarding Events meeting] to hit gold in a year, and credit card plus four meetings to hit Plat in a year. People have gotten nights posted for no-show meetings costing less than $80. At that price, anyone who is close to plat or plat premier in a year can just "buy-up" to the status that year, and part of that buy ups would be 5 suite night awards when hitting those statuses in a current year.

All Marriott has said is come August 1st Rewarding Events will still be the same - not that it won't change after that date.

In old MR, the 3 points per dollar on meetings (8 points if the meeting was charged on MR visa) was kind of a disincentive on Rewarding Events nights in terms of qualifying for lifetime status, because then unless you had already hit the points requirement, it increased the average spend you needed for the other nights in order to hit the 1.2M/1.6M/2M points thresholds. The new one has no such limitation.

Also in regards to the credit cards, chase seems to be going hard on getting people to switch to the new MR Visa (upgrade offers of points, certs will only be good for 25,000 points on old card and good for 35,000 on the new one) which leads me to suspect when the new card becomes available they will stop accepting applications for the old one. And the new MR Visa just gives the 15 nights a year, no 1 elite night/$3,000 moved across the card like the old one. So at that point, beyond the 15 nights from the credit card each year (which, per the terms, doesn't stack - having an MR visa and SPG Amex won't give you credit for 30 nights, you only get the 15 nights from one card), the remaining "cheap" way to buy nights is Rewarding Events.

Question is if Chase will eventually drop the carrot (Upgrade offers trying to entice people to voluntarily switch to new card) and switch to a stick (discontinuing the old card/forcibly converting it to the new one).