I know Marriott is adding cat 8/9. I would assume most properties would take more points to stat at.


I've been partial to Marriott simply because there is more properties , especially now that they have SPG in there portfolio.

I guess my question is now that they are doing this, are you folks looking at loyalty at other hotel loyalty programs such as IHG or Hilton??

Marriott is reducing the number of categories. The highest category will be cat 8 . You may want to familiarize yourself with the new chart here.

https://members.marriott.com/redeem/

There are far fewer categories now than before (they've eliminated the 3 Ritz Carlton tiers). Also Marriott has announced that there are more properties going down in points than going up. (Some of that may be due to SPG properties going from 12k SPG pts/night to 35K Marriott pts/night which is basically a wash but technically, they have gone down in price.) There was a great award chart showing points required for each property before Aug 18 and after Aug 18, but Marriott has deleted it now that the merger has happened. Perhaps you can still find it on the blogs.

So I think someone has been giving you bad info on devaluations.

If anything, there are some tremendous values right now because future cat 8 hotels are bookable at cat 7 pricing. There's a large thread on that.

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/marr...nd-2018-a.html

More research is required before jumping ship.

The net outcome of the change, as documented elsewhere, is that some properties get cheaper, some get more expensive, but on average, across all of SPG and Marriott, redemption are slightly cheaper.

Every individual stay pattern will yield different results (though I don't accept the "the properties I stay at went up, so the entire program was obviously devalued"), but on aggregate - neutral to slightly positive.

With the many other problems the integration has, this one isn't worth re-hashing, again, IMHO.

Is the 'New Award Category' on this chart already effective as of Aug '18? or not yet? Looking at the Sheraton Niagara Falls (NY) , it shows the new category as 4, 25k points. But when I search for a room, it's showing Category 5, 35k points.

https://points-redemption.marriott.com/category-change

Does this response account for the new "peak" thing? I mean sure, the off-peak rates deviate from standard equally to peak and so are on paper offsetting, but who wants to vacation during the rainy season/dead of winter/etc. I confess to not having dug into to it much as yet, but my sense is that peak rates will become the new norm, and that's where the true devaluation has been hidden from view (for the time being), no?

Remains to be seen. If "off-peak" is set centrally, monthly, etc. then there will be some sweet spots left open. If the hotel gets to define on a day-by-day basis what "peak" is, then this is a massive devaluation. (although that would save some noob members from spending excess points when cash rates are low)