I suspect that "temporarily" killing the Plat line "for program integration with Starwood" is a very poorly executed move to ditch US call centers and go full off-shore. I've personally never seen a business like a bank, airline, hotel, whatever that kills a high-tier service offering for a short time just to merge a system. United Airlines had a hard and painful cutover to Continental's ancient system back in 2012 - thus my signature line - and it was a mess for weeks. But, that's not the same as Marriott killing the Plat coms system 4-5 months before a merge.