AAir_head

Handcake

Thing is, it is easy to say they should devalue plat when you are sitting at titanium or ambassador. On the road to getting that 75-100 nights, it would be a lot harder to stick with Marriott if I had to do 74 nights without lounge access. I honestly just wouldn't do it. I'd pick another hotel that got me there quicker or I'd just pick the most convenient hotels and buy the rooms with lounge access paying a bit more, but staying a lot less nights a year out.

The trick is adding value to titanium. I am not sure how they will do that, but I am shooting for that status this year anyways. I want more suite upgrades.

olivedel

Why would you think they would do that? That is one benefit I would definitely not cut, as its cost is really low.
What we will definitely see is different upgrade priorities. Differentiation could come from the fact that Bonvoy Plats, in 2/3 years timeframe, could not be eligible to Suite Upgrades, only when they use SNAs. Or that Ambassadors could have a suite upgrade guarantee or a Your24 guarantee.
But that is only speculation. Let's see how they handle the Feb 13th transition...

joakgarp

Any hotell chain would love to have customers who stay 50 nights each year. That's a lot of money if you think about it so not sure it's wise to piss this category off.
There's really no reason to remove lounge benefit for platinums as the cost for lounge is pretty low/visitor. I could see Marriott remove the suit upgrade though for platinums though in some future but my understanding is that there's already some kind of priority list in place with Ambassador first, Titaniums second and Platinums third for the suite upgrades.

Would be interesting to know how many platinums exist. The first step Marriott has taken was to cut down the count for number of stays. So it's already gotten more difficult to achieve Platinum status. Number of platinums will probably go down each year now thanks to the amount of stays from the SPG days won't matter anymore.

airoli

Let's not kid ourselves here. Marriott, and any other loyalty program operator, makes decisions around elite tier benefits based on data. Lots and lots of it.

They will continuously analyze the behavior and spend of their program population by tier level, look for revenue lifts and drops by segment , and compare this to benefits usage and cost in collaboration with properties.

They will also continously benchmark against their major competitors and buy lots of 3rd party data to detect any shifts in market share - again, on a very segmented basis.

Based on all of the above, the program will be calibrated to maximize contribution and minimize cost. That's it.

Nuhusky

BrightlyBob

kaizen7

Judging that Titanium and Ambassador is NOT new tier, just a renamed one, I don't think there will be any changes to the all tier benefits.

The renaming of titanium level pretty much just to make it more distinct than current version which pretty much 3 tiers can be called Platinums and that make some of people who really cares about correct tier recognition not very happy.

jerseygirl

Duke787

+1. Despite the merger issues, the carrot of LTP being within my sight is the main reason I'm continuing to book.

If they devalued LTP to remove lounge access I'd be taking a major pause with Marriott since there wouldn't any value add over LTG.

Antarius

Then the question is why bother with Plat when you could be Gold etc. An ever descending spiral.

lounges arent expensive to operate. It's far cheaper to stock a lounge for breakfast than give out breakfast coupons at the restaurant. Heck, a Fairfield inn does breakfast for everyone - that shows how cutting it for Plats would do nothing significant to your bottom line, and piss off a lot of people.

Sabai

MSPeconomist

AAir_head

A plat could stay at any property (doesn't have to be RC), pay rack or corporate rates, and easily spend more than a titanium on any given stay or through any given year. I don't think how the airlines do upgrades is relevant here--it's a completely different product: everyone shows at the same time and all the seats are available at the same time (you DO know "your seat" isn't really "your seat"...right?). And they all do it a little differently, with your spend factoring in more or less (or not at all) according to program. It's possible to have three top-tier flyers seated in coach together who all paid more for their seat than every person in F (none of whom are elite or top-tier) because they all walked up an hour before the flight. Do you think airlines should hold all the seats in the F cabin because the elites who spent the most money for the flight (or last year) should always get those seats? That would be silly. I don't think hotels work that way, either.

You said in your original post DYKWIA is important to you--okay, then: pony up the money and just buy the room you want. Presto: you'll probably (but not necessarily) spend the most money AND have the better room. You can even tell everyone about it and some may be very impressed. Maybe you'll spend so much they'll call you, say "Do YOU know who you are!?" and offer a super-secret invitation-only elite tier. Or you could call ahead, tell them exactly when you're arriving, and pointedly ask "DYKWIA?...Great, if you have an upgraded room available, I expect you to hold it for me until I get there." Maybe that will work, and maybe it won't. I don't know.

If you want to try to spend as little as possible and get the most out of it, play the game by the rules the program lays out just like everyone else. That means that a nicer room isn't "your upgrade"; it's a perk the hotel may or may not give. I am sure the hotel will leave a suite or premium room empty if they don't see a benefit in giving it as an upgrade--because it is empty doesn't mean they're required to upgrade you into it. I'm guessing it isn't exceedingly common that an upgraded room is available for the length of a given stay AND upgrading someone into it leaves another like it to be sold (if that's a factor for the property). There's a thread around here somewhere about the dark arts of revenue management; I don't pretend to understand it fully, but I'm sure they're not going to shoot themselves in the foot with upgrades--if they think they can sell it they're not going to give it away and we ought not begrudge the fact.

Upgrades are often a pleasant surprise (but sometimes not--like the this past weekend when I got "upgraded" into a executive suite that's also accessible, which is literally a pain in my back). I never book a room that's not acceptable to me hoping/expecting to get upgraded--that's just plain dumb. I'm perfectly happy to get the room I paid for and the lounge access/PAG I "earned" under the program rules--if that changes, so be it. MR/MBv doesn't "owe" me anything that's not in the T&C, which say upgrades are offered based on "availability"--a term that is exactly as squishy as it's meant to be and entirely at the discretion of the property. I'm very clear-eyed about the fact MR/MBv can change the T&C any time and for any reason. Status tiers and the hurdles to earn them have, can, and will certainly continue to change from time to time. "Lifetime" means "lifetime of the loyalty program", and that can be similarly changed as it was just recently. The whole program can be terminated with as little as 6 months notice (less in some jurisdictions)--that's all spelled out up front in the T&C. And if you don't think you're getting enough love, you can terminate it too...

cheers and happy travels!

Nuhusky