shoodawg

Dear Arne!

Hope that all is well with you and yours. I'm sure it's been an extremely difficult and noisy last few months, especially with all the IT problems and all the pain associated with the evolving loyalty program.

As a truly fortunate Lifetime Titanium member of Bonvoy, with 99.9% of that status earned over many years at Starwood properties, I wanted to share some thoughts about the evolution of the merger, and program transitions, and the ultimate impact these are having on previously really, really loyal individuals. While you are reading this, I think it's important to be in touch with your "Why?" as your "Why?" impacts - most importantly - your loyalty program members-all of the millions of legacy Starwood guests, legacy Marriott guests, and the future Bonvoy guests. Indeed, associated impacts to your licensees are critically important, but impacts to your guests will ultimately flow back to your licensees and Marriott, either positively or negatively. We certainly realize that you did get bigger in the merger, but never forget, the traveler has never had more options with where to spend their night(s).

1) Most SPG elites absolutely loved the fact (and were truly loyal because) they very rarely were in the situation of needing to request, negotiate or for heavens sake beg for an upgrade to a better room (because it was obvious that better rooms are available). Very, very often, properties would allocate upgrades in advance or allocate them upon check-in. These days, it seems, upgrades aren't offered and just don't happen at check-in, but must be negotiated or plead for. This is unnecessary noise.

2) Most SPG elites also loved the (high quality) breakfast benefit at most every single upscale property. Now, there's the one-two punch of declining quality of food when offered, and the increasing cases of properties either not being a breakfast benefit brand, or if the brand offers breakfast, the property wiggles out of providing breakfast. More unnecessary noise.

3) Staying, and not actually receiving the Points and Nights that one should receive has become a large issue. On at least half our stays so far this year, either night credit or points, or both, have been missing from the point activity credited for the stay. What's the "Why?" here? This indeed is more unnecessary noise.

4) Local welcome gift! Some of the world's most unique and upscale SPG properties would surprise and delight with truly unique souvenirs or other thoughtful tokens of appreciation-just for staying with them! Sometimes the value was minimal and on other occasions the value was a bit more. The "Why?" here was surprise and delight, and these tokens actually incentivized us to stay loyal to SPG, and loyal we stayed. Surprise and delight seems to be missing nowadays. What's the "Why?" there?

5) Confidence. Historically we could have high confidence that promised benefits would be delivered. Now, confidence is waning, owing to some of the above, and more.

It's all about the "Why?". If what Marriott and licensees provides to guests go forward fairly consistently surprises and delights us, I think we can probably get past the noise around the edges. However, if your "Why?" is squeezing every last cent out year over year, I see a much noisier future for all stakeholders. Arne, what's your "Why?"

nachosdelux

I'll tell you why. He is a bean counter that only cares about the bottom line (i.e. shareholder value). Too bad nothing will change. I will speak with my wallet.

SkiAdcock

Dear OP:

Arne isn't reading FT. If you want to get his attention, email or snail mail him, the loyalty guys & the BOD. Good luck! (I mean that sincerely BTW).

PS - IMO this thread should be merged into the other SPG FTers 'things were better on the other side, now they're crap' thread (whatever the title is; don't remember).

Cheers.

davie355

Any CEO who isn't reading the FT board of their own company is a failure of a leader.

I'm not saying CEOs should personally respond to all threads. But, hopefully during free time, the CEO is looking through FlyerTalk to gain extra insight.

SkiAdcock

And obviously you're not familiar w/ F50/100/500 companies. If a CEO is perusing individual threads on multiple individual BBs worldwide (in any industry) on a daily basis I would say he or she is not doing their job. They have people for that.

Cheers.

Sabai

arlflyer

Table-pounding rants aside (which is a stretch, because these threads are nothing but table-pounding rants), where exactly do all of these Very Important Lifetime Whatevers propose to take their very significant amounts of business to, anyhow? I hear Red Roof Inn is opening up a lot of downtown locations. Corporate travel will have no issue expending airbnbs, trust me. Ooh, Hilton is offering bunk beds, since it is pretty much running full occupancy across the board. They can fit you right in.

Sure, pound the table harder. We all want more for less. But only a major disruptive force, likely in the form of a recession or major new entrant, can really alter this trajectory.

JBord

By your definition about 99.9% of CEO's are failures. This is not a mom and pop shop that responds to Yelp reviews. It's a huge company, with layers of management. At the very most, there is someone several layers down from the CEO who rolls up social media feedback into a report for a supervisor, who consolidates that with survey feedback, etc. and presents to a VP, who does something else with it and presents a few key points to an Exec VP.

Bottom line is there are likely people at Marriott who do what you want the CEO to do. No one should be paid millions to read FT on their "free time".

CPRich

You seem to have no concept of what CEO's do or what a leader is.

Hint - neither involve reading anonymous internet boards.

myperks

Land-of-Miles

You are joking aren't you?

Those of us who travel a lot have multiple choices, who is stupid enough to have status in a single chain, especially the one rapidly providing the worst benefits in the market below even Hilton. Starwood used to be my first or second choice, now it tend to be IHG and Hilton neck and neck with Marriott as a distant third.

I am not saying the alternatives or perfect but increasingly they are becoming preferable to all but the very best Marriott properties. My experience has a LT SPG Plat and formerly happy as an "old" Marriott Plat has deteriorated markedly in the last 6 months to render Plat pretty much worthless for all but a free breakfast. Rather than being incentivised to push for Titanium I think it highly unlikely that I will even get SNA's this year (for the first time since they were introduced to SPG). I certainly do not need to beg for upgrades at my regular Hiltons, IC's or Kimptons.

JBord

All very true that we have choices. But to me, and I assume many others, there are really only two choices -- Marriott and Hilton. IHG properties, IMO, don't compare to Marriotts or Hiltons (although I have been in some better IHG's). Hyatt has some very nice properties, but the footprint doesn't even come close to Marriott and Hilton (same with SPG pre-merger). Then you have a hodgepodge of others. If you don't care about a loyalty program, boutique/independent hotels typically beat any of the above.

Hyatt, IHG, and others become much more logical if you're a traveler who goes to one or two locations repeatedly. But if you're in a different city every week or two, I think there are only two choices.

Interestingly, I've found myself relying more and more on AirBnb for my personal travel, only choosing a Marriott or Hilton when I'm using points.

Jaunts

Hope the OP feels better after venting some frustrations. It won't make any difference, though.

As others have mentioned, the letter should be 1/4 the current length and sent to Arne if he wants it to have any chance to be read. But the OP probably knows that already.

This is just going to turn into yet another thread complaining about Marriott. Don't get me wrong, I agree there are big problems. There are just too many separate threads on this board about complaints already.

hockeyinsider

I disagree on the upgrades and local amenity complaints, but agree on the breakfast complaint. I do, however, feel a complaint such as this would be much stronger if the complaint cited properties that failed to provide breakfast or claimed a coffee and muffin were breakfast.

Regardless, these sorts of complaints, as someone else said, should be sent by email or post to the CEO, the other senior corporate leadership and even the entire board of directors. My guess is the board isn't actually told the extent of the problems.

tfong007

This dbag needs to be fired. Paying him 15mm last year is a true slap in any customers face. Joe Dog Catcher could do a better job.