Originally Posted by khabah

Highlighting this section of your comment. While individual properties are singled out for their design, location, service levels or whatever factors that sway a customer into choosing it, many of us on this forum ABSOLUTELY care about the way we are treated by these hospitality companies via their respective loyalty programs.

Loyalty goes both ways: we all spend time and money at properties within a family of brands owned by a single company based on a choice we make to devote fostering a relationship with individual companies and properties in the hopes that we can grow within the company and in turn be rewarded for our time and money. Starwood was tiny and they had to work harder to lure you, but for myself and many others, they worked for our affection and got it. The company was customer-centric and failed to grow for a variety of reasons you eloquently described above, but their customer service was a key point that drew people into becoming fiercely devoted to their loyalty program, to the point that people would seek their properties out no matter where they were. THAT was an emotional connection to a product.

Illustrative point: I was visiting Ljubljana, Slovenia one summer and the only SPG property there was the Four Points Ljubljana Mons, located on a highway outside the city center. Instead of staying at the brand new, far more upscale and beautiful InterContinental in the middle of the city, I stayed at the older Four Points. I was given their best suite in the house, a handwritten card and welcome amenity of locally-made dark chocolates and a full bottle of Slovenian red wine.

I was lucky to have had a 100 percent suite upgrade success rate under SPG. Back when the Ambassador service had bespoke Ambassadors, I initially had one who was a legacy Marriott employee and while she was nice, she couldn't be pushed to be proactive, timely or give a crap when I would write in with requests. When I requested a switch, I was given an Ambassador from the legacy SPG side who was INFINITELY better, always personalized my stays and took the time to build a more genuine and personal connection with me, which was something I enormously appreciated.

Then Marriott killed the bespoke Ambassador service "in the name of COVID", alienating its highest-paying subset of loyalty program customers and removing an experience that many of them knew was watered down from the original SPG product, but soldiered on with anyway despite its wild inconsistencies.

And now this absolute garbage about Capuano wanting us to have an emotional attachment to Marriott's current program, one that he is now on the record with for saying it's less rewarding to end-receivers as us, that owners carry more weight over us, and that having more SpringHills and Fairfields and Courtyards available to us should be an attractive trade-off for a neutered program and loyalty experience because we're too stupid and our memories too short. UNBELIEVABLE. Many of us do have an emotional attachment to Marriott, only it's more visceral than anything else and in the sense that it makes one want to run like Hell to the bathroom.

It's hard for me to wish Marriott well. Hilton, for that matter, although my experiences with them have been relatively good so far. I hope all this myopia results in them tarnishing their reputation and triggers a walkout of guests that in turn affect their hotels' performances, which triggers owners to walk out on Marriott. I look very forward to seeing how this direction works out for them... from a Hyatt, IHG, Hilton or any other property that isn't one of their flags.

khabah