Originally Posted by
Kacee
At Marriotts with a lounge, you get lounge access. If the lounge is closed, you get breakfast in the restaurant. You also get the choice of a welcome amenity, which is now 1000 points or a $10 F&B credit. These are separate benefits. This is the same basic rule that's been in place forever.
At certain SPG properties, the breakfast benefit is part of the welcome amenity. That's why you are offered either points or breakfast.
I know the rules are unduly complex, but it would probably be helpful to the discussion if you read them.
Originally Posted by
pinniped
*shrug* I've been staying at Marriotts for 25 years on 4 different continents and many of them have done wine and cheese as a welcome amenity. Some properties do other things; some do only points. Oddly enough, I have never been in a Marriott where they offered me a $10 voucher. I've had a few U.S. stays in the past 2-3 years where it was just points, no option for a voucher. My main point is that I have never been asked to give up other Platinum benefits as a condition for accepting the points or the welcome amenity. That happened to me for the first time on my first U.S. "Bonvoy" stay, this week.
But this is how SPG has always done it, and there is no change.
If you stay at the Seattle Renaissance, you get lounge access with breakfast and light snacks at dinner plus a $10 voucher (or points in lieu of the voucher).
If you stay at the Seattle Westin, you get breakfast in the restaurant or a $10 voucher.
This is how it has worked before the SPG acquisition, before 8/18, before Bonvoy, and now. SPG made you choose. Marriott did not.
Obviously, the benefit at the Renaissance is objectively better since you get breakfast, dinner snacks, and $10 but there are SPG loyalists who insist passionately that the benefits at the Westin are better. (and yes, I know the benefits at resorts were better under SPG)