shoodawg

Just asking, because for 20 years we focused our hotel budget almost exclusively to SPG properties. Reason was, as Lifetime Platinum members, we received world-class service in terms of recognition and benefits. Upgrades, sometimes they were pre-allocated. If not pre-allocated, they were warmly offered at check-in. Now as Titanium for life, it's like, "where's the upgrade?" better rooms available for sale only. In terms of Breakfast, this was a most wonderful benefit at SPG's leading locations. Now, it's like "no breakfast for you, our lounge is closed and we don't offer breakfast when the lounge is closed", or if there is breakfast, the offering seems to be low quality. With SPG, there was a warm heart, and they cared, and they showed it. Now, with Marriott, there's a big fat finger telling us we just don't care about you. With SPG, you'd actually receive a nice and thoughtful local gift on arrival some times. With Marriott, that nicely wrapped red gift on the bed in the Bonvoy commercial seems to be your virtual welcome gift.

So Arne and friends, guess what, there are tons of options around the world nowadays that don't have the Marriott brand nameplates, that do have a heart and show they care, with warmth and world class hospitality. Bonvoyage.

Just my two cents.

myperks

1st Cav Vet

2019, and I have personally experienced Marriott's "we just don't care about you"!

beofotch

Remember with Bonvoy the guests are the product.
The actual customers are the hotel property owners

DJ_Iceman

If you swap "SPG" for "Marriott" in the OP's post, I would agree. Marriott always treated me as a valued guest; SPG screwed me every time I made the mistake of staying at one of their properties.

itsaboutthejourney

I don't know about anti-guest, but dull, boring and far from great customer service is why back in the day, when given a choice: it was Starwood/SPG while I tried to generally stay away from Marriott's brands. It also baffled me how people put up with the lack of information on their website.

Dr. HFH

Were you SPG PLT?

miloworld

SPG treat Silver better than Marriott treat Titanium

BrightlyBob

nacho

Can't exactly say every hotel is anti-guest - have had good experience in some hotels. However Corporate is really anti-guest, no matter how human they sound they just follow the computer's decision.

It's like a Swedish bank declined Mr's credit card application (his income qualified), the CSR said to me that Mr. has to call and they will tell him why. So I got Mr. to call and the reason was "the computer said no" (Mr almost wanted to tell her to ask the computer why it said no). He moved on asking if there's any message or anything and she said once again "the computer said no". Marriott hasn't gotten this far yet but I think it's coming.

bosman

Nice "click-bait" thread title. It does set me off a bit when a poster makes an overly dramatic statement only to find that the "meat" of the argument are actually rather minor complaints (see airline threads titled "Is this the new norm?" when a single FA was rude). I'm not saying that Marriott is perfect (so no "Marriott defender" responses please) and certainly seem to be controlled/strongly influenced by the properties, but I would say that 90%+ of their guest interactions are warm and positive. So, to answer your question, no, I would not say that Marriott is "virulently anti-guest".

Mustang Sally

You're right, perhaps 'virulently anti-guest' is indeed a bit strong. What about...

Not exactly customer centric
Pathetically inept
Clueless
Confusing
Overly complex
Inconsistent
Incongruous with a positive experience
Lacking customer focus
Unable to fulfill basic expectations
Total shambles
IT disaster
Communications joke
Asleep at the proverbial switch

Feel free to add your own perspective on this, but Marriott has done little else but screw up. (And no, breakfast is not included).

bosman

I would accept those comments/descriptors with the possible exception of "Incongruous with a positive experience" and "Unable to fulfill basic expectations".

EricH

I'm a US-based legacy SPG Lifetime Plat, but MR was my backup program. My two cents:

There's a lot of selective memory in these threads. Marriott had lounges in just about all of their FS properties long before SPG properties started to offer them on a very inconsistent basis. Yes, MR lounges have typically been closed on weekends while SPG's have been open, but if lounge access was important you had to research SPG to determine if there would be any access at all. My experience was that lounge offerings were better at MR properties. As for upgrades, I agree that I got more suites in SPG properties, but most of my upgrades have been to "better rooms" and I can't say that I notice much difference. I've had more bad interactions with SPG staff than MR. One major difference that matters to me is that Marriotts have easily accessed electrical outlets while I've spent far too much time hunting for outlets in SPGs and playing contortionist or moving furniture just to plug in my laptop.

Most of the above is about US properties. My experience outside the US is that this is where SPG had a pretty big edge. I often found SPG hotels to be superior and less expensive. The Sheraton brand is no guarantee of anything in the US, but Sheratons outside the US tend to be very good.

My bottom line: it's different now. Get used to it or find something else that works better for you. I admit that I'm getting fed up with the IT issues, but I'm not going anywhere yet.

mahasamatman

Absolutely. There are dozens of threads with hundreds of posts in the old SPG forum about how people had to beg and threaten for upgrades, yet the OP claims that upgrades were always cheerfully offered.

The bottom line is that people are blinded by nostalgia and fearful of change. And those people will forever be unhappy no matter what happens.