Maybe Roger Stone has been hired by Hyatt to run this website as a dirty trick.

It's an excellent social media poke in the eye for a company that has run roughshod over the concept of a loyalty program. Despite multiple requests for clarification and help, Marriott has been largely deaf to their most loyal customers

Status renewals. Breakfast policy. Lounge access. Points not posting. Points inaccuracy. Promotion sign-up. Honoring promotions. A total IT cluster cluck. Inadequately trained help-desk staff. And being beaten over the head with pages of terms and conditions that are all too frequently unintelligible and open to interpretation.

Whether you're amused by this or not isn't the point. The point is Marriott deserve this.

Bonvoy. Destroying loyalty one customer at a time. (Breakfast not included).

....after the second stay surely :)

I think the lounges are as full as they have ever been because more and more hotels now bundle lounge access into rates. Some of these properties even have rates that include lounge access on the weekend when their lounge is closed. Talk about deceptive.

Yeah, the messaging ship sailed months ago. We had "Link your accounts", then we had "No, really, link your accounts", then we had "Combine your accounts", which would have led most people to believe that they were working with the new program. Then, all of a sudden, they decide to launch a "new new" program without actually changing or fixing anything. A better approach would have been to keep things separate until they can actually handle doing it all in one shot, with a formal launch and associated changes.

So many folks posting about "unexpected downgrade to Gold", including here :rolleyes:

What was unexpected? It was clearly spelled out in the T&C from last year. Also, your status is still comp'd through the partnership with UA.

Kindly enjoy Hilton where everyone can be a Diamond for $450/yr.
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while I generally agree, there seemed to be quite a number of unjustified downgrades happening as well ...

Communication has been very poor! What a HBR study on alienating customers.

Unfortunately, the SPG side has been more vocal on expressing their issues even though the new approach is much more SPG oriented, which is far less consistent than Marriott regulars expect.

A lot of this could have been avoided by better communication, surveys of best guests, and enforcing standards at hotels.

I'm not a Delta regular, but they send me a survey after every flight.

Just sending surveys after every stay to Titanium and Ambassador level guests would involve minimal cost and result in significant cheap improvement.

1. Were you greeted as a ______
2. Were you provided with lounge access
3. Were you offered a breakfast choice with a hot protein
4. Were you provided with a suite upgrade



Personally, I was under the impression from FT that there were significant widespread problems. Additionally, from my own difficulty in booking reservations with the app/website being frequently down, I expected the company would be seeing significant problems.

All that being said, its clear from the 3d and 4th quarter 10Q's that Marriott is doing just as well as its competitors.

I agree the company has been pretty deaf.

That being said, so far in March, there are signs that it is starting to come together.

1. Points are automatically posting again at the proper rate
2. Lounges I have been in have exceeded brand standards with additional fish/meat/cheese at breakfast not required
3. All properties have greeted me at the proper level
4. Mega bonus brand posting posted properly without the need for me to call -- after the initial glitch, of course, posting only two brands
5. Suite upgrades are happening again
6. Ambassador continues to respond in a timely manner
7. App and website now allow be to download bills from all properties
8. Website is mostly working
9. Mobile key is mostly working at several Marriott properties
10. In the earnings call, Arne acknowledged there are actual problems

I suspect a lot of resources and attention were diverted to the state actor data theft problem or some of this would have been taken care of earlier. So, other than the website being intermittently down, things are definitely moving in the right direction.

Whoa. Just a minute...

1. Points are automatically posting again at the proper rate? Inconsistent at best
2. Lounges I have been in have exceeded brand standards with additional fish/meat/cheese at breakfast not required? Not seeing any change
3. All properties have greeted me at the proper level? Nope.
4. Mega bonus brand posting posted properly without the need for me to call? This is a joke, right? Nope.
5. Suite upgrades are happening again? Sporadic
6. Ambassador continues to respond in a timely manner? n/a
7. App and website now allow be to download bills from all properties? Nope.
8. Website is mostly working? 'mostly working' not exactly an endorsement. And let's be clear here, the website and the app don't seem to be synced at all.
9. Mobile key is mostly working at several Marriott properties? 'mostly working at several properties... Maybe this sounds better? 'Our planes mostly get to some of our destinations...'
10. In the earnings call, Arne acknowledged there are actual problems: Well good on Mr. Albert Einstein. He's finally woken up to the fact 'there are actual problems...' What a genius to work that one out.

So where are we at after 2 years? 3 out of 10?

I wonder if it'll take good old Albert another 2 years to start do something about it?

I have to agree with you. I'm seeing no improvement. Still problems with stays posting properly. SNAs have been an utter disaster. Absurdly punitive award cancellation policies are spreading like wildfire. And of course, most of the properties I'm interested in redeeming at just jumped in price by over 40%.

Excellent point. The increase in points requirement at many properties is an epic error in judgement when you're trying to resolve (oops sorry) have just woken up to the fact there are countless integration problems that are backfiring on your most loyal customers.

But, as I've said before: Bonvoy. Destroying loyalty one customer at a time. (Breakfast not included).