Originally Posted by
stant
I dont know about that - consider cobalt. Marriott expects hotels to know when a guest would arrive and have the GM personally (or if not them, other management) greet the guest and provide them with special, local centric perks. Now there are obviously FAR fewer cobalt guests, but consider the workload of THAT kind of expectation I'd say having a note and a plate of munchies in the upgraded room of valued guests isnt that much of an ask.
If 100 nights and 23k simply gets you a plate of munchies i will pass.
Equally if Marriott has suceeded in making a note and munchies the expectation of Ambassador and people still seeing it as something worth achieving i take my hat off to their marketing department.
While your comments on Cobalt expectations are accurate, context is needed. There are far fewer cobalt members than people think. For example at a 5 star hotel i know very well at any given there maybe 4-7 ambassador guests, a lot more titanium and even more gold and plats. They will however maybe see 5 cobalt members a year.
What is amusing is the last 2 apparent cobalt members I have met, turns out they were not, they just said they were to make themselves sound more important.
You don't need a personal greeting by a GM for Ambassador status to work, you just need hotels to know if they don't treat Ambassador members correctly Marriott will hold them to account, but realistically that's never going to happen. So even if you have great Ambassadors, if Marriott won't empower them at the end of they day they are at the mercy of the hotels management.