I make as conscious an effort to post "It was unexpectedly good" reviews as I do to post "It was unexpectedly bad." It's the "unexpected" part that typically prompts me to take the time to write a review. That and a review of someplace that's relatively new with few reviews.

I also didn’t see how all of these members were defining “prefer”. With Marriott Bonvoy, I’ve finally had the freedom to stay at a number of great hotels that aren’t part of a legacy SPG brand. I definitely prefer having the flexibility to stay at the hotel that offers the best experience in each city without feeling locked into SPG.

An interesting anecdote from Kyle at Live and Let Fly in his article on the topic: https://www.wsj.com/articles/marriot...er-11572910559

Hilton/IHG earnings both flat, Hyatt up. Marriott profits down 23% - how exactly can that be possible when they are actively reducing costs to their customers (hotels), and if they have such a crazy high 90% approval rate vs. the program a year or so ago? Makes you go hmmmmm....

It's actually perfectly logical, -- just that FTers tend to start with the most negative possible interpretation of everything. A quick look through publicly available financial information gives the answer.

YTD through third quarter 2019 compared to the same period in 2018: Revenue was up slightly year over year. It's the expenses that killed them. "Merger Related Costs" went from $64 million in 2018 to $191 million in 2019. Also, "Gains and other income" went way down, from $191 million in 2018 to $16 million in 2019. Interest expense went up $50 million 2019 over 2018. That's where the big differences are.

Total revenues in first nine months of 2018 were $15,469 million and went up slightly in 2019 to $15,601 million, up very slightly, as reported. Same with REVPAR.

Interesting about this point as the drop is significant.

What would be included in this?

Maybe in the Hotel business you can be too big to succeed?

Asset sales.

Reading the quarterly release :
Gains and other income, net includes gains and losses on the sale of real estate, the sale of joint venture interests and other investments, and adjustments from other equity investments.

Reading the release it is not the doom and gloom that it is being portrayed as.

REVPAR is up, total revenue is up, operating income is up.

https://marriott.gcs-web.com/news-re...r-2019-results

Exactly why everyone should take this thread with the same grain of salt. It started with an opinion of a survey with no facts to support it.

You've just made a point in favor of the survey. If the Starwood properties were so great (which many of the resorts were), why wouldn't he show them off now that they're part of Marriott? One of the biggest reasons for legacy Marriott customers to be happy with the new program.

FT is overwhelmingly biased towards the negative. We complain about every program, every change, every devaluation, and we mostly stay silent on improvements because we fear the airline or hotel company will take them away. So the "spread of the responses" come from what is arguably a very biased group. The fact that there are as many people they are admitting they're happy with the new program is surprising.

FT is also an elite-heavy, frequent traveler group. That likely doesn't mirror Marriott's total membership. There are a whole bunch of people in the program that weren't heavy users. If polled, they may simply see more options to redeem their points. It may not be the best way to accurately measure the value of a loyalty program against a former program, but it's a fair way to measure how people feel about it.

First of all, I'll say that the survey may very well be skewed. A lot of these are. Maybe it's really only 5:1. We don't know.

But there's another option you missed above. When comparing two things, if one is clearly better than the other, people will vote in that direction. If I asked you which you liked better, a slice of New York's finest or the frozen pizza you had yesterday, I'll bet I'd get a pretty high response for the former. It's not a rigged or biased question or sample if those were the two products you were asked to compare. And it doesn't mean one is good and one is bad, just that you like one better.

For some people, especially on the Marriott side, the programs are that different. Although I think there are several new benefits for me, let me give you the big one I've used several times before. In the old program, I was years away from any lifetime status. When the programs merged, I became LT Platinum. How could I not say I like the new program better?

I know you miss SPG and dislike Marriott. That's your right. But you don't seem to acknowledge that beyond the frequent traveler blogs and forums, there are a lot of people for which the Marriott/SPG merger, and the new program, provided tremendous value.

https://onemileatatime.com/survey-pe...rriott-bonvoy/
https://viewfromthewing.com/marriott...arwood-8-to-1/
https://liveandletsfly.boardingarea....data-suggests/

Vast, vast majority of the comments (close to 300 combined) are negative and highly skeptical of the 8:1 claim.

Only this forum seems to actively put faith in Arne. The balance is somewhere likely in the middle.

I will go w/the bigger wisdom of the crowd's & Occam's Razor. 8:1? Flat out lie.

First and foremost Marriott customers are not the people that book hotel rooms. Its customers are hotel owners. The loyalty program is just a direct marketing program to existing customer and Marriott has bragged about how it does it at a lower cost then competitors.

Marriott's customers, the hotel owners, are paying Marriott in part to manage the hotels but that's only a small minority of the properties. What the hotel owners are really paying the franchise fee for its to drive customers to their hotels. The Bonvoy program is a big tool for that but most Bonvoy member only do a few stays a year.

I think I a few years ago I saw a stat were over 80% of Marriott Rewards member stay less than 2 times a year and if you work out the total hotel nights vs total members that's likely about right. Marriott last year had 1.3 million total rooms world wide, thus a bit under 500 million room nights on a loyalty membership of 125 million, its 137 now but a large part of that growth is from a joint venture where its very likely few of the new member spend more than a night a year at a Marriott hotel. The article says something north of 50% of the room nights at Marriott are booked by Bonvoy members. Thus something around 250 million nights a year or around 2 nights per Marriot member per year. Given the large number of nights those that spend 50 or more nights a year spend, outside of conventions and conferences many large Marriotts regally have a third of the rooms booked by 50 night Platinum and above Bonvoy member. Its easy to see how the 80% spending less than 2 night a year is likely the case and also its likely 50% of members don't spend a night in Marriott even once every year.

You're polling the same audience multiple times and using the results as corroboration. That's not how science works.

The same people that are on FT are the types that respond to travel blog posts and polls. The average business traveler who isn't status obsessed isn't involved in any of this.

"Science" (aka good rigorous marketing research) also doesn't get to an 8:1 preference rate on mass market comparisons @:-)

Point remains - this is likely a mixed issue, with mixed preference

Of course it is a mixed issue...at least an 8:1 mix :). It's not very likely a one question survey, "which do you like better". It's probably a bunch of questions that allow the "statisticians" (quotes on purpose as I use the term loosely) to parse the data for a dozen different outcomes, depending on how they decide to weight the questions and responses.

I actually agree with you that if you took a one question poll, you wouldn't get 8:1 results in either direction. But it's probably purposely more convoluted so multiple interpretations can be made.

However, the reality is that it's very likely that more people like the new program than the old one. Marriott customers almost all benefited. Some SPG customers benefited (and some others who won't admit it). And certainly there are some people who lost out. Maybe it's only 3:1 or 4:1 in favor of the new program.

Honestly, I couldn't care less who the CEO of Marriott is, was, or will be in the future. I have no reason to defend him. Starting a thread calling the CEO a liar for quoting the results of a survey that his team interpreted and presented to him seems inappropriate here though.

I have essentially boycotted Marriott this year (haven't had a paid stay since May & have blown through a million or so points).

But, the program as written is better for most people, especially on the Marriott side. HQ has given better benefits to vast majority of Marriott loyalists while being fair to us SPG folks

The problem is not with the program terms. The problem is with the tech and the completely useless customer service reps. 3 calls from Asia to US couple weeks ago, 2 hours on app etc, just to make one booking. That is NOT the program's fault it is the IT and C'S people..