Marriott Bonvoy Lurker II

Hi miloworld,

We would like to help if you could provide your account details to us via private mail here or by email below.

Best Regards,

Christina Zhou
Specialist, Social Media
Marriott International

[email protected]

yxc94550

I was SPG Platinum for years by qualify with 25 stay. When SPG and Marriott merged last year they said all SPG members will still be able to qualify Platinum by end of 2018 with 25 stays, but didn't mentioned anything about which side of property you have to stay...when I planned my travels last year I had few occasions where I had to pick between Marriott property and SPG property (Renaissance vs. Four Points) where the price was not much different but I do get more points at check-in. I normally prefer to stay SPG property, but in this case I had to go Renaissance instead of Four Points. To ensure I was on the right track and not missing my status by staying on the wrong side of property, I made multiple phone calls to confirm with the program rules, and have been told by everyone "SPG and Marriott are now a big family, so either side you stay will count" one phone call particularly around Christmas time last year when I was close to 25 stays and the lady over the phone counted every single stay for me between the two program to confirmed that I was on the right track.

Sometime last month I realized that my status dropped from Platinum to Gold and I called membership service which they said I only had 25 nights from last year and can only qualify as a Gold Elite. I brought up the 25 stays thing from SPG merge last year and they didn't know anything about it, so they opened a case for me, and few days later I received an email regarding I only had 19 stays from SPG and can only qualify as a Gold Elite, I brought up my issue with making multiple calls before the year ends to confirm my status and she said she need to check with her supervisor which takes 5 to 7 business days...on Monday I finally got my response back from them after about 3 weeks and they said 25 stays was only good on SPG property (I can't find anything says SPG property only) and sorry about my loss then offer 30,000 points to make up.

I felt this is completely B.S., because there nothing saying it's SPG property only, and their staff seemed know nothing about it from the beginning. Plus I did attempted to try to make it right by confirming with their staff multiple times prior I made my booking decision and all the sadden they just seemed like they don't want to honor their promise anymore. My questions here is if nothing has been published regarding to SPG property only and you did everything you can to make it right, but they don't want to honor the promise, is there any legal action that I can take to against the company?

I feel if they said SPG property only, then I would have booked SPG only instead, but after all these money invested and being mislead then only getting 30,000 points just didn't seemed enough. Any thoughts?

Horace

Marriott announced in April 2018 that Marriott Rewards, R-C Rewards, and SPG would be combined in August 2018. Elite tiers and how how to earn them would change. However, in 2018, it would still be possible to achieve status for 2019 through stays at SPG-associated brands. It appears that OP missed the part about SPG-associated brands.

Marriott's website for the announcement and the details was members.marriott.com. Now the same URL provides information about Marriott Bonvoy. But the Internet Archive Wayback Machine can take you back to what it had last year.

Using archive.org, you can still read how Marriott explained it in April 2018 (and throughout the rest of 2018). Anywhere that Marriott provided information about achieving status in 2018 through stays (rather than through nights), Marriott specified that those stays would need to be "at SPG-associated brands only" or at "at SPG hotels" to be counted.

— Go to https://web.archive.org/web/20180818...riott.com/spg/
— Scroll down to section 3 ("NEW ELITE STATUS LEVELS AND BENEFITS").
— Read the second bullet:

Starting January 1, 2019, Elite status will be achieved on nights and not on stays. Until then, SPG members can achieve status based on stays at SPG-associated brands only, but can also qualify based on nights across the 29 brands.

Also, the FAQ at https://web.archive.org/web/20180513...riott.com/faq/ specified SPG hotels:

HOW WILL MY STAYS WITH REWARDS AND SPG BE COUNTED TOWARD MY ELITE STATUS STARTING IN AUGUST?

In August, we’ll notify you when you can combine your accounts. We’ll combine your Rewards and SPG Elite Night Credits from this year and count them toward a singular Elite status recognized equally across all hotels. Elite tiers will be achieved through qualifying nights. However, throughout 2018 we will continue to honor Elite achievement via stays at SPG hotels that occur in 2018. Learn more about Elite status qualification and benefits at our Member Benefits page.


On one hand, it was generous of Marriott to provide 30,000 points as a goodwill adjustment, when the website specified that only stays at SPG brands would count.

On the other hand, the OP should have received and been able to rely on accurate information from Marriott Rewards/SPG Member Services in 2018. That seems not to have been the case.

cfischer

It is upsetting they gave you 30k points. Frankly, zero would have been more appropriate. The rules in some instances were less than clear ... not in this case though. This was clearly spelled out on Marriott.com as an exception rule for 2018 and that all nights would have to be w/ SPG properties.

Beeb

So we're now in May, I still have my Platinum status on my account, but my years lifetime Platinum years never incremented (25 stays at SPG-specific properties). I've emailed the lurkers who passed it to their IT team, who told me to wait 8 weeks. It's been 8 weeks and there's been no update... any suggestions on where to go from here?

Assimilated Cajun

I had pretty much given up on this -- achieved 25 Starwood-legacy stays last November, also had 100+ pre-August nights on the Marriott side, never got the one or two additional lifetime Platinum years to which I believed I was entitled, was told the "technical team" was working on it but no timeline for their work and no way to get further information -- but then suddenly a couple of days ago the extra years showed up in my account. One of the Lurkers, to whom I wrote a thank-you note, has informed me that the technical team has now completed its work on these cases, so I hope your extra year has credited too. There is a more complete discussion of the missing lifetime years issue in another thread: Years of status is available .

Marriott Bonvoy Lurker

Just to be clear...we are aware that a few members who had cases opened on this issue have had them resolved. But, there may be others who are still waiting for theirs to be.