IAHFlyBoi

keeping fingers crossed for you! I'll be at 70 nights by next Sunday, 5 more to go till PPE, the only consolation I have is that I'll be Plat for life next year, I've got 9 years in the tank already. After that, its time to go back to the big Hyatt.

n8-the-gr8

Anyone who was SPG Plat 75 heading into August 18th (from legitimately staying 75+ nights last year - not a challenge or other way of getting status) and was downgraded to Platinum?

I correctly had Platinum Premier for 3 days and then was downgraded. Frustratingly have gotten mixed answers from SPG and Marriott. When I called last week, I was transferred to a manager who told me I was incorrectly "promoted" to Platinum Premier but downgraded because that was an accidental upgrade of status. I tried contesting this given Marriott's own communication of how status would transfer to no avail. He further suggested that the only way for SPG members to get Platinum Premier status was to earn it this year and that there was no grandfathering of status from last year. He almost got tripped up at one point saying that Marriott folks who stayed 75 nights last year indeed were entitled to the new status while SPG members who stayed 75 nights last year were not. Made no sense.
Later I spoke to an SPG agent who confirmed I should be grandfathered into the PP status but wasn't sure when this would be fixed for me and said I would need to give it more time.

The miscommunication within Marriott's customer service reps and lack of any actionability to fix things is infuriating to say the least.

kmersh

My wife has found that over time that many Marriott customer service reps have either been poorly informed or just misinformed regarding program benefits and even Marriott press releases.

A few reps have been much better than that, but on the whole that has been her experience, the entire integration has been confusion even for the hotels themselves. At one Marriott that my wife stays at frequently, she was chatting with the GM in the lobby and he said his "hotline" has given him a few different answers to the same question, so he was not surprised that customer service was giving out wrong info as well.

He said, he wishes things stayed the way they were, he asked why did integration occur now?

flying_geek

Nope, mine is still wrong and I am not getting any responses. Also my free night cert from the Visa didn't get redeposited as it should have - but emailing is like sending to black hole, nobody answers the phone. I was very pessimistic about the merger, but Marriott's utter disregard for anything customer service greatly exceeded any negative expectations I might have had. This is just sad. I am staying at a Hilton next week - a year ago if you had told me I would voluntarily do this within 12 months - I would have laughed. I mean, we are talking a program where you have little value in earned points, you can get top tier status with a CC (just having it), very inconsistent hotel quality - and yet it feels a lot better than what Marriott does these days.

goldenbear

I think a major issue is that marriott decided to keep the gold/plat/plat premier elite titles. Makes it hard for everyone to keep track and obscures who is being downgraded/maintained/gradfathered etc. I mean maybe they really wanted customers to think they were not downgraded, but their own agents have no clue either.

Name the categories something like Elite25, Elite50, Elite75, Elite100 and it would be quite clear what was going on. Would seriously get rid of half the confusion - most of us here are using FT to be more informed than the average Traveller and many still scratching their heads. I can't imagine the kind of confused calls they would be getting in regard to elite status from people who don't read forums or blogs. If the names didn't really catch on, it would not be hard to simply change them once everything settled down.

Someone who earned 75 nights in Marriott or SPG, or combined is not being grandfathered in when getting new PP status. But the 100 night plat premier was definitely a more exclusive tier, and it seems that many MR employee still seem to think that PP is as exclusive as the old PP.

Kacee

Plus they can't fix anything. So there's no point at all in calling or emailing.

Agreed. I was optimistic about how Marriott would handle the merger, but it's just been so shockingly bad it's left a terrible taste in my mouth.

brianinok

It's been two weeks since they opened a ticket for me (it took forever to convince someone that something *might* be in error). I am still showing PE when I should be PPE. I think tomorrow during normal business hours I will call and have the person/people I talk to go to the website and browse to the table on the MR site that shows that pre-merger MR PE members will be PPE post-merger, and then just say, "it has been a month exactly since the merger and I would like this fixed before I get off the phone please."

jeanie

Please post your results. I have a feeling that the customer service reps and supervisors don't have the ability to fix those things. It is probably an IT issue. Hopefully, I am wrong, though!

phltraveler

Which was required to keep all of the status matched people happy. Amex Plat SPG Golds are still "gold", UA Gold & higher are still "gold", SPG Plats @ 50 nights are still "plat" (Even if the exact benefits of these tiers, especially MR Gold, are much less than they were before 08/18).

The worst is the re-use of the Platinum Premier title, which was already noted by many as confusing to properties before 08/18 (when plat premier was invite only in the legacy program with no published criteria). I I suspect this was done because PP was already coded in the back-end system (as X4 for Plat Premier, vs P6 for plat) and because it was to try to reduce outrage among the SPG Lifetime Plats that were not going to be grandfathered to the same level (which failed and they ended up making the 750 nights + 10 years of plat by end 2018 for grandfathered LTPP to give SPG elites a bite at earning it).

brianinok

So, I had a 40 minute completely unproductive call with a MR supervisor (though quite professional and nice). She told me that my case that had been opened a couple weeks ago had been looked at and they determined that my status is correct. She apologized no-one contacted me to tell me.

I got her to go to the chart on the Marriott website that shows that MR PE will be MR PPE after merger. But she said because I was LTG before merger and became LTP after merger that is my status-- LTP. She said you can only be one status, and mine is LTP. I explained to her how that could not be. I said if someone joined today and stayed 75 nights for a couple years they would be PE and that would override any LTS status. She did not seem to understand it was possible to have a LT status and a current status AT ALL.

After quite some time of trying to reason with her I said we were at an impasse and said it would be best for me to speak to someone higher up. She said she was a supervisor and that no-one higher than her speaks to customers. The only option she could give me was to email a general Marriott email and wait for a response. I told her my understanding was those emails were bouncing back because the inboxes were so full, and she assured me they weren't full.

As we ended I told her I appreciated her professionalism, though I disagreed with her strongly. What she was telling me was blatantly false according to the information Marriott corporate was putting out to customers. I said there were limits to my commitment to Marriott. She waxed poetic about how if customers just stick with them they'll get problems sorted out-- a lot of things will get swept up by IT at the end of the year, a month isn't very long to fix a merger like this, etc, etc. So, I said it sounds to me like you don't really know what's going on and you know a lot of problems will get fixed at some point, and you're not sure if my account is included in that. She said that's not what she said. I said okay and we ended the call.

Basically, I have minuscule faith that my email will get me anywhere. It might even bounce back. I am likely to make PPE by YE anyway, so I might just drop it, and if I do I'll probably call in the new year and ask for a point adjustment for the bonus points I missed out on (75% bonus v. 50% bonus) between August 18 and December 31.

jeanie

Thanks for the update. I am getting the feeling that my status won't be fixed until the January sweep, either. However, if that is the case, I will probably avoid Marriott until then.

Kacee

I believe they've made the decision they're just not fixing these on a one-off basis. If your status wasn't corrected in a sweep, it's not going to be corrected. We can leave or stay, Marriott doesn't care.

jeanie

BTW, I am showing as LTP for my status, and PP for 2018. I was legacy LTP in Marriott before August 18, so I should be LTPP and PP. But you are right. It is possible to be LTP and PP at the same time.

RogerD408

If I understand, you are looking at becoming MPE LTPP by making MR LTP after the merge under legacy rules (nights & LT points). Sounds like they are not set to do that. I do expect you will be bumped come January when they do the sweep for those with over 750 nights and either 10 years proper status or 2M LT points per program rules. I doubt they will be issuing any retro credit, but may be worth a request.

GoPhils