Originally Posted by controller1

From reading this thread and others, it appears those of you with a number of years with Marriott should have expected these changes in general.

I see statements such as "[name of hotel] in [Any City, Any Country] is my favorite and it is increasing from a Category [x] to a Category [y]." Well, if it is your favorite hotel then perhaps it is hundreds or thousands of other members favorite hotel also. And since Marriott determines categories based on popularity of use of award reservations at said property, it is somewhat expected.

It was much better on the member with SPG as they based their award categories on a property's ADR. So yes, you might have a Four Points in San Francisco at a higher category than a full service property in the U.S. midwest, it was easier to justify because the regular rates and thus the ADR of the San Francisco property was higher than that midwest property.

Even though I prefer the SPG way of pricing award categories, it is hard to argue with Marriott's way of pricing award categories since it is based on the principal of supply and demand and the higher category properties are demanded more often in the form of award reservations than are the lower category properties.