Originally Posted by
naumank
I recall a colleague was telling me around the Year 2010 that SPG had removed lounge access at his tier (I believe it was gold). I could be wrong on this.
I think removing lounge access for Plat is a real possibility for several reasons:
- At the mid status level at other major hotel chains, there is no unlimited lounge access. (Plat level is now the mid-level status of the new Bonvoy program. Ambassador requires 100 nights, and Plat requires 50 nights.)
- IHG Plat (40 nights): Gets a "raid the bar" card. ($10 food credit?)
- Hilton Gold (40 nights): Free breakfast. No lounge access.
- Hyatt Exploriat (30 nights): 4 lounge passes per year.
- Club Carlson Gold (30 nights): No breakfast or lounge access.
- New Titanium doesn't currently offer differentiated benefits over Platinum, and many members are asking for more to justify the additional 25 nights.
- It looks that the merge of SPG and Marriott accounts has created a lot of LTP and LTPP members who would not have otherwise achieved the LT status in either program alone. For example, I had close to 750 LT nights before the merge, but I was nowhere close to 1.6m points. Now I'm LTP. I know a friend who was mostly MR Gold over the past 10 years, but now he is LTPP because of the nights from SPG.
I think it's very likely for Marriott to reduce Platinum's benefits down the road since I can't think of any more perks they can add to the Titanium level.
One possible solution is to remove unlimited lounge access at the Platinum level. Possibly they can take the approach of Hilton and Hyatt combined. Platinum will still have free breakfast (for whatever it is worth) and 4 lounge passes annually.
I don't like the possibility but please tell me it's not a legitimate concern.
I can’t tell you it’s not a legitimate concern. I also can’t quantify just how many LTPP/Ti elites were minted in the merged MBv program. Marriott knows. And clearly that number wasn’t large enough to dissuade them from constructing the program and tiers the way they did.
I wonder if there’s a skewed view of just how many elites there are based on the relatively small sample represented here (?). I did not expect to be LTPP/Ti, but that’s not going to make me stay at Marriotts
more. If anything, it makes me a free-agent, less-incentivized to always choose Marriott because I don’t have to chase the status anymore.
Maybe MBv’s plan is to “devalue PLT” in a year or two; or maybe it isn’t. But the program will change...that’s certain and always is. We’ll have to wait and see.
What else do you suppose you could do about it?