Originally Posted by
Horace
Marriott either bought trademark assets from whatever legal entity still remains of the old Bonvoy (which might have given Marriott a good jump-start if that entity owned international trademarks), or Marriott's lawyers determined the old Bonvoy trademark had lapsed and would be considered legally abandoned.
Domain registration (with a domain registrar) is separate from trademark registrations (with government agencies in the US and elsewhere). It seems likely that the domain registration expired due to non-renewal, and somebody grabbed it and parked it with GoDaddy (which costs almost nothing), hoping to resell it some day.
So far, Marriott has not bothered to pay whatever the owners of bonvoy.com want for the domain. If Marriott were to acquire the domain, Marriott would probably just use it to redirect users to marriott.com, just as marriot.com (with a single T) redirects to marriott.com (with two Ts). The domain at best would be a "nice to have" for Marriott, not a business necessity.
I don't think the other site trademarked Bonvoy so it appears abandoned.
Cybersquatting isn't what it used to be. The owner fo the
www.bonvoy.com doesn't have to sell it to Marriott but cant use it for travel. So, its not really of much value unless someone wants to use it for something outside the travel industry. It's perfectly logical for Marriott to sit and wait until the owner decides to sell it to Marriott for whatever Marriott is willing to pay, It's not as if Marriott is driving people to use Bonvoy to make reservations.
Originally Posted by
itsaboutthejourney
Marriott ... apparently fired most of the IT people from Starwood. With this level of incompetence, does anyone expect Marriott to be savvy about alternate domains?
Domain registration would be a marketing function, not an IT function. So, the problems with the website are unrelated. Of course, the marketing function at Marriott is being driven by a legacy SPG guy. Additionally, the domain doesn't matter ... Marriott owns the trademark.
And ... where did you hear that Marriott fired Starwood's IT people? I believe almost everyone in that function was offered a position at Marriott.