As a newbie to the forum, but a recently dissatisfied long time Platinum member with Marriott I find the thread interesting. I had a position for years where travel was very consistent (100+ stays/year). I took a non-travel position for a couple of years, and then resumed a more travel heavy gig. I had asked Marriott to see if I might be able to regain my status in some sort of expedited manner, and a 'challenge' was presented (I believe that this is pretty standard; 18 nights in 3 months). Pretty much a piece of cake. To speed it up even more, I grabbed a Marriott Visa which gave 15 nights upon opening; designed to get someone to silver right off the bat. Trouble was, after the fact, I was told that those credited nights would not count towards my balance; that I would have to personally stay the nights.
Am I wrong at being a little annoyed by this?
I would still easily be able to meet the criteria of the challenge, as my history showed, but felt a bit alienated after having spent a fair amount of my life in their properties. My new company had a deal with Starwood, but I was hoping not to start from scratch if I could help it. Upon calling them, they offered to take me to Platinum in a match right away, as long as I could show that I was in fact Platinum with Marriott recently (my status had only lapsed in the last year). Having a point balance with Marriott, just recently opening the card, my general comfort level with the properties, and the fact that Marriott had paid for numerous aspects of my life (including a honeymoon!), I felt I should let them know that a competitor was treating a total stranger better than they were. Long story short (or maybe not), I was rebuffed, and am now moving forward with disengaging myself from MR and entrenching myself with the SPG folks.

More a commentary than anything else, but wouldn’t it make sense to keep a client with a track record than lose them over what I feel were ‘bait and switch’ tactics?

I would be curious to hear any thoughts on this.