I was stuck on hold for about 15 minutes a few nights ago. I wound up politely informing the CSR that in the time that it had taken me to get through, I had managed to confirm a new credit card and book my room on a data-throttled phone (I mainly called because my phone was on restricted data...the joy of being in a family with three kids ;-) ). I'd just finished doing so when they came through, but it was a bit of an embarrassing moment...really, for both sides of that conversation IMO.

I've stopped driving business to Marriott in most cases. Part of that is that I managed to requal very early this year, giving me a bit of flexibility. But a lot of it is that Marriott has generally fallen on their face. My view is this: There are a lot of good folks working the front desks around the country, doing their damnedest. But between a bunch of franchise owners getting too clever by half in the face of negligent corporate management and labor squeezes on the other side of the equation, there's only so much they can do. And in some of these cases it hurts because there are a few hotels I've been frequenting for various reasons for years (e.g. the Hunt Valley Inn, where I've been attending conventions for several years) but there's only so far things can go to pieces before I might get stuck moving my business.

Edit: Honestly, if this goes on the net result of this is likely to be that I muddle my way to Titanium in 2022 for 2023...but knock on wood I'll be doing it on the basis of 30 nights from credit cards, 5 from the 50-night award, and maybe a few other nights from an odd promo with the rest coming from events held at Marriotts or cases where relative footprints force my hand. But I feel like I'm getting a better experience out of pairing Hyatt and Choice than Marriott. Even then, I'm honestly holding on for the 48-hour guarantee more than anything else.