It definitely incentivized me to get the Brilliant when they did this fairly briefly in late 2020-early 2021 as a promotion.

https://www.godsavethepoints.com/mar...atinum-status/

I also stayed at Marriott enough + picked up the business card and thus requalified in 2022 (helped by pandemic night bonuses) and for 2023 (I'm skeptical I will requalify in 2024, the fully dynamically priced awards coming in 2023 and the current and rumored changes to the Brilliant make me leery of investing a lot of energy in this program, I'm in "wait and see" mode, and the $95 AMEX is a downgrade option for me... $230 for two 35k certs might not be too awful).

That promo definitely steered some stays towards Marriott that I could have otherwise just gone "nah, I have other options" about (2022 was an unusual year, where I stayed six weeks in hotels throughout Europe, so it made some sense to do things that would enhance status that year). So I am pretty sure this is exactly what Marriott was aiming for in their promo, attracting new business vs. rewarding people who are already diehard loyalists.

Frankly Hilton awarding Diamond for holding the Aspire hasn't "killed the program" as far as I can tell. There have been devaluations but even Hyatt is devaluing their points. I suspect that Marriott has a better idea of what the "business decision" needs to be here. Maybe it's Platinum with a top-end card, maybe it's not.