No, retirement is definitely not a bad thing — and yes, I do have to travel for a living. My business requires that.

Please accept my apologies, but I suppose I am still confused by what you are trying to say and why you thought I was retired or did not have to travel for a living based on what I posted.

Although I still belong to all of the frequent guest programs offered by hotel chains, there have been times in my life when I was an elite member of each of them. Marriott may do a great job with offers that are not targetted to specific members of their frequent guest program, but I did not like the way I was treated by them when I was an Elite member.

Currently, Hilton HHonors treats me well as a long-time Diamond member. However, I do not get targetted for special offers, for whatever reason. The rate increase expected in June pertaining to the redemption of Hilton HHonors points for award stays at greater than 900 properties provides less of an incentive to remain loyal because it will require redeeming more points for the same award. This is not so bad if one gets an offer targetted to them giving the opportunity to earn extra Hilton HHonors points, but with no significant offers of any kind offered to me, targetted or not, it renders concentrating on one particular hotel frequent guest program somewhat more difficult — thus, the statement of me considering disregarding hotel frequent guest programs in the future, blasphemous as it may sound on FlyerTalk, is the result.

Promotions are only part of the equation for me, not the complete equation, in terms of choosing a hotel frequent guest program on which to concentrate. Of course, many FlyerTalk members concentrate on greater than one hotel frequent guest program. However, if promotions are the sole reason why one would concentrate on a certain hotel frequent guest program, then Marriott is currently an excellent choice.