Originally Posted by
MSPeconomist
Great. Now we'll have eight more special cases regarding elite welcome amenities and breakfast rules.
It will be interesting to see how they handle elite benefits at these properties. Everything from wifi access, club lounge (do anyone of the current all-inclusive properties have any sort of club floor lounge with premium drinks?), breakfast (presumably included), resort fee, upgrades, etc. Some of these properties are coming online soon. Presumably, there will have to be an announcement pretty soon. I imagine in some markets this could be positive since currently flagged properties will have new competition. This could force them to rethink things like access to non-complimentary club lounges (looking at you Marriott Aruba or JW Marriott Cancun) or the absurdly stingy breakfast benefits. After all, why would anyone redeem points for a category 8 hotel with little to no elite benefits if the all-inclusive is the same number of points or less per night. On the other hand, I could see Marriott thinking guests who like to use points will gravitate toward all-inclusive properties, which will rid the non-all-inclusive properties of the rift raft who demand a free breakfast beyond a bagel and coffee.