Originally Posted by Happy

It is the INTENT that counts

The INTENT has NEVER been putting customers benefits ahead. I dont think anybody can deny this.

The INTENT has always been to generate the highest breakage, or in other words, to reduce the highest possible amount of liability carried on the books with the least possible cost (actual hotel stays).

That is why they did not communicate and deliberately not only kept everyone in the dark, but INTENTIONALLY sent out trial balloons with totally misleading "information". If you care to look back, MOST of the "information" the SPG Lurker was told to tell us, has NOT come true whatsoever. In fact in many cases the opposites happened when people are urged to do things on the other directions,

Just look at how the system is designed for those who have attached their certs to the properties as they are being to do so would be for the best of their benefits - when they tried to make any change to the bookings even though the hotels have not changed categories - Certs were automatically canceled by the system with point refund - it takes a Hercules effort to get your cert back so you would not become one of the "breakage" that Marriott has been factored in.

It is not bad marketing strategy, nor customer relation issue. It is a well-thought out, carefully planned strategy. A strategy being formulared based on the data it has collected from the customer reaction to the trial balloons set off since April that led to the final days, fully intended for only one thing - to benefit the corporation, using an extremely questionable handling of the customers.

Remember, Marriott initially had NO intention to refund the 30K overcharged points, and using the bogus Peak point pricing to justify the action.

Here is a simple analogy
If you have bought a merchandise for future delivery, paid the price sight unseen. You went ahead to pay it even a lesser merchandise would cost less, but in good faith you expected to receive a better product because you paid more. Now the merchant informs you, "Oh, the merchandise has arrived, you can pick it up in a month's time. Though here is a small thing - the merchandise is not what you ordered, just slightly different (cheaper), but it would function the same nonetheless. We would not provide a refund for the price difference, because the merchandise has the same function anyway. (we will pocket the extra payment, sucker.)"

Ask anybody who is put in the above situation, Would he accept the above explanation AND the lower quality merchandise that he initially did not want, and opted to pay a higher price for a better merchandise?

If the above is not a fraud I dont know how to describe the scenario.

That is exactly what has happened here, even though it is committed by a big corporation, not a store you paid for your merchandise and only be told lesser value merchandise would be delivered, but you would not get the refund of the price difference - the essence is the same.