phltraveler

Okay...

The addition of the nights line makes sense under either interpretation (positive - that all meetings per contract will still earn the 10 nights per contract - and negative - that only the first meeting per year or ever will earn the 10 nights right off the bat).
This is due to the addition of the SPG Pro-esque clause that meetings earn 1 EQN for up to twenty related room booking nights, up to twenty EQNS per meeting (400 room booking nights / 20 nights per meeting related EQN for planner = 20 EQNS for meeting planner).

The fact that for six meetings that all posted on the same day and emails sent at the same time that one meeting listed 10 nights and the other listed all blank is pretty supportive of the "cynical"/"negative" interpretation of the terms (that only the first meeting automatically earns 10 nights) - the "10 nights"/"thereafter" SPG Pro-esque for subsequent meetings in the terms. The alternative would be that there was a combination of bugs/pending batch processes, that somehow the template filled correctly for the first meeting but none of the others (hence how the emails were sent with NIGHTS lines with no number of nights listed) and that this will be correctly run in a batch process that hasn't run yet, perhaps because it is suspended due to other data loads/transformations or merger related troubleshooting going on.

The amount of coincidences/circumstances that would have to occur for the behavior observed post-08/18 with meetings, GPT, and meeting credits would make it very highly unlikely to support the "positive" interpretations of the T&C.

Can it absolutely be disproven? Not until MR says otherwise, and RE postings are probably pretty low on the totem pole compared to other issues in the merger, so I doubt a spokesperson will clarify language that many people consider "clear" (not ITT, obviously, hence the whole discussion) for a while. I can't prove that MR won't announce that category 1 will be re-valued to a million points for off-peak redemption tomorrow. I also think that's very highly unlikely, but I can't prove that it won't happen. The terms would technically permit it, and I don't work for MR or affiliates, so I can't say with certainty that it couldn't happen.

Again though, it would be grossly inconsistent when Marriott has minimized the availability of the free/"cheap" nights and paths to status (new chase card eliminating 1 night/$3K spend, only one credit card giving 15 EQNs to a member, elimination of being able to earn EQNs for up to three rooms at the same time as legacy SPG permitted, etc.) and would also render the SPG Pro related aspects of the program a moot point (you would earn EQNs much more easily by separating the meeting room contracts over driving tons of related room bookings to a meeting).

At this point, IMO, we're basically searching for a needle in a haystack in some odd combination of factors that has some plausible explanation on why the current behavior from the GPT we're seeing is only giving 10 EQNs for the first meeting, and that as an unintended bug with MR taking the "positive"/"optimistic" use of the terms of 10 meetings per each and every contract still despite the "first" language.