Originally Posted by
bhrubin
There's no question that previous SPG Plat100 Ambassador elites are going to have the better end of the deal for the end of this current year. We already have our assigned Ambassadors, and many of us already have established relationships with the Ambassador team and with the hotels we already frequent.
Of course, I think it was very smart of Marriott to start this loyalty merger in mid-year 2018 rather than in Jan 2019. This earlier merger basically allows them to work the kinks out mid-stream, rather than at the start of a new year when everyone is dying to get everything. Not as many customers are dying to get everything now. This allows Marriott to give extra perks to some (Ambassadors to Plat Premiers), introduce new systems for upgrades/SNAs, etc, to test things out and perhaps placate more customers. This also allows them minimize the award arbitrage issue a bit, since starting in the new year would have been much worse IMO.
but if you want my opinion, regarding the number of properties, I would even have make the ambassador status at 150 nights + 30 or 40k but deliver something unique.
100 nights and 20k is too easy to reach anyway with such a huge number of hotels, everywhere you go there is a Marriot / SPG property.
I really don't like the dilution of benefits (same with the gold MR to platinum), same with the CC who give gold status, etc. Dilution is the worst thing ever, it's a loose loose thing.