Originally Posted by
Adelphos
Well the main difference between Choice and Marriott is that Choice doesn’t have luxury hotels in Maldives, Barcelona, Vail, Tokyo, South Beach, wherever, so Choice points I earn on paid stays get me less places. This is why the Starwood merger ultimately has/will work for Marriott - the loyalty programs are now almost all about earning and redeeming points, and Marriott has the most places to earn and a ton of interesting places to redeem. The other stuff is “noise around the edges” so to speak. Titanium in and of itself could earn you more points
Fair point, and for that reason I hope all of my future business stays remain with a big chain that has interesting places to spend points. (My first couple of post-pandemic trips have been selected from the same list of hotels as we had in 2019, so I'm not seeing any huge push from my current company to change our behavior.)
But for my personal stays, I'm much more conscious of how little difference there is between the brand levels and I'm much less willing to "buy up" to a higher level. The raw value of the points (and my hope to spend them later in Barcelona or Maldives) is worth something, but the intangible value of status and the soft value of staying at a more upscale hotel is now essentially zero.
I still cling to the hope that more hospitality-oriented cultures will retain some of that service and general soft value at their luxury brands. Can't have a staff member at the St. Regis in Maldives snarl at you to order Domino's if you get hungry.
