Thanks for taking your time reading and replying to my moan :-)

I don't really care what phone costs are incurred as I want a hotel (chain) offering a seamless service which includes correspondence via mail, so

1) I can have a clearly and concise communication with the hotel so nothing is missed, and mostly
2) Have everything in writing

so pretty much what MSPeconomist states above...

My best experience so far has been with Four Seasons, The Peninsula (of course in HK), Sofitel and Shangri-La where all can be done via mail, directly with the hotel, and checkin staff knows when the limo arrives so one is taken directly to ones suite/villa in most cases, which is not possible with third-party transfer bookings.

Yeah, seems like 25 nights (or 44 nights in my case for 2019) per year is not enough to get any real recognition so maybe it's time for me to wave good bye to Marriott and I'm quite sure I won't be missed.

Anyway, Thank you once again for your replies and again wishing you all a Happy New Year...

PS. I'm starting to reconsider the whole hotel loyalty membership tbh... I got quite a good amount out of it from Accor back then but over all not worth it to stay loyal, at least in my case :-)