cozysuite

I agree that the later is more valuable in terms of opportunity for future revenue.

However, when it comes to Life Time Status, which I think should be given to veteran, retired or former frequent traveler,
it is much more meaningful for the former group.
The hotel program has no incentive to give LifeTime to the people considered to be on-going traveller (status-seeker) , have they

X-ON

While i can have sympathy for the OP in the sense that for grandfathering purposes your LT activity ideally should be valuated in both the LT valuation function for MR and SPG . In this regard I think it is wrong to blame Marriott it was actually the SPG IT system that did not track the lifetime accumulation of points all the way back to the inception of the accounts It was only a time window of a certain years (I think 15 but I could be wrong) once data got outside of the window it got purged. That is on SPG not Marriott . My suspicion if this was not the case SPG accounts would have been translated to MR and MR accounts translated to SPG and the max implied LT status would be obtained. But since this was not possible, since the SPG database was setup as it was, they went to what it is today.

RogerD408

Yes, but also consider WHY they bought SPG. If there wasn't any value there, in both property and program, then it would have just been dissolved and pieces picked up for a much cheaper price (forgetting about the China players for a moment). And I think the MR members would have made note of what was done to a sizable group of new members and have no doubt the same could/would happen to them (and I'm not convinced it won't anyways). Marriott has left a lot of wiggle room in their terms and getting known for not following them all we can do now is wait and watch.

I'm hoping the BOD learns what has been happening and decide to replace all the top-level staff that didn't know or didn't do anything to address the issues.

HNLbasedFlyer

I can't imagine there was much of a tangible value in the program - if anything, the program is a huge liability considering all the points that could be redeemed.

Antarius

I disagree. Yes, points are an outstanding liability, but the program was bought for the customers it had. The elite members from spg are by and large now Marriott customers.

margarita girl

RogerD408

Yet some have reported getting a total points from SPG. I do know that they have never published points, but I do believe there is a lot of data in their system if they'd just look or want to retrieve (yes, may require more than a click of the mouse). OPs wish that they would consider corner cases is fair as is Marriott's response to say no. Regardless of where you draw the line, someone will have issue with it.

rooivalk

Same boat. 1000+ nights but only 8 years of Plat. Definitely earned way more than 2m Marriott points. Unless years where I was elite in Marriot due to linking counted then I could be 10 years... does anyone know if they're counting the linked years as elite status years?

Kagehitokiri

didnt they say combine number of years?

while there are clearly many issues, it could always be a lot worse, think about all the even higher value people who spend tens or hundreds of thousands annually but dont meet requirements

william is given / possesses certain information, he is not the CEO etc

CJKatl

For a Marriott year to count you need to have earned or been awarded 50+ status from Marriott activity. Status matched years from SPG do not count or each of the years since accounts could be linked would automatically count as two years.

margarita girl

This is what Lurkers have told us, but Lucky posted on his blog that even matched years counted in his case so he was accelerated to LT status. YMMV.

sdsearch

1. Marriott always tracked lifetime points, SPG never did. So as other have said above, it's not Marriott's fault that they can't offer 750+ nights plus 2 million lifetime points to SPG members.

2. The whole reason they required 2 million lifetime points is because it was not easy to achieve. Many people got to 750+ lifetime nights without getting anywhere close to 2 million lifetime points. They started panicing earlier this year and cooking up every possible way to get to 2 million points in a hurry, which resulted in this thread:

The Race to 2.0MM Points is On!

Among the way that people got relatively few lifetime points while getting near or beyond 750 lifetime nights:

1. Staying on cheap rates.

2. Staying at extended stay brands such as Residence Inn, TownePlace Suites, etc, of which Marriott had way more than SPG (did SPG have any extended stay brands before the relatively-new Element?), at which you earned only half as many points per dollar as at other brands.

3. Choosing to earn miles are certain times rather than points. One of the reasons I was low on lifetime points as got close to 750 nights is because the first few years I was with Marriott, they had a lot of mlies promos, which only worked if you earned miles instead of points, and I had no awareness of lifetime Marriott status at the point, and was just interested in more airline miles, so that's what I chose to earn during those promos. It's only when those promos dried up, perhaps half a decade or so ago, that I started always earning Marriott points, never miles, on hotel stays. Btw, I did some miles-instead-of-points at SPG back then too.

So are you sure you would really have been at 2 million lifetime Starpoints or more at this point? How could you know, without SPG ever showing that to you (that I'm aware of), unless you had 2 million actual (not lifetime) points as of this moment? And, in any case, what should they have counted 2 milllion lifetime Startpoints or some other number, given the Starpoints were completely differently valued than all other hotel points? You may think that it should have been 2 million divided by 3 perhaps, but that might be over-generously low. I found that at SPG I earned way more points by doing one-nights stays as a SPG Plat than any other way, because the Plat check-in bonus was so huge (500 Starpoints, the equivalent of 1500 of today's points), while the earnings on inexpensive hotel rates (the only kind I book, because no one reimburses me) were puny by comparison at 2 or 3 Starpoints per dollar. So someone who was SPG Plat and stayed only one-night stays (especially at relatively inexpensive hotels) earned a lot more points per night than someone who stayed multiple nights and/or wasn't SPG Plat (at least at similarly-inexpensive hotels).

Anyway, it's just a theoretical discussion at this point, because SPG never kept track of lifetime points, and thus had no such information to transfer to Marriott.

And, that, in turn, explain also why the way to qualify for lifetime status using lifetime points is ending, because they could continue using it once SPG members were folded in fully. So it's just the several months "limbo" because Aug 18 and Dec 31 where things are "colliding".

thaliajen

Dr. HFH

Just a guess, but I'm betting that for the OP, this isn't about figuring out the best approach for Marriott to take so much as it is about the OP being unhappy that he is, or considers himself, "a high value SPG member who has 750+ lifetime nights, but not 10 combined years of Platinum status" and is disappointed.

CJKatl

Not all SPG LTP became LTPP, only those with over 750 nights. Did you have enough nights? Even if you did, you will not see LTPP on your account until the sweep in January IIRC.