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Marriott Bonvoy ‘Ambassador Elite’ Experiences Discussion Thread (2021 / 22 / 23 -)

Old Jan 13, 2021, 1:23 pm
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Marriott Bonvoy ‘Ambassador Elite’ Experiences Discussion Thread (2021 / 22 / 23 -)

Old Jan 16, 2021, 9:01 am
  #46  
 
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Originally Posted by khabah
Following up on the above, I just read this article about how Bonvoy is the "backbone" of Marriott's strategy. They're not interested in giving away "too many free nights", but rather want their guests to wonder "why they would ever join another hotel loyalty program."

At this point, after all this, I wonder if Marriott's top brass are senile, straight-up delusional or really dislike where they work to the point that they themselves are sabotaging it from within. Double-you tee eff.

Pasting below to avoid the annoying registration wall.

khabah

***

How Marriott Is Fighting To Save The Golden Goose: Its Loyalty Program


I always though Marriott is working very hard to make Bonvoy the most useless program by removing benefits here and there and pretty much killing the most visible benefit of their highest loyalty tier.

Bonvoy suspend brand standard when other manage to continue offer their pre covid benefits... increase members dissatisfaction.
Removing personal ambassador and replace with a group of cs rep with fancier name.

The only things that held members from defecting to other program are Marriott own footprint and interesting properties within their portfolio.
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Old Jan 16, 2021, 9:11 am
  #47  
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Originally Posted by khabah
Following up on the above, I just read this article about how Bonvoy is the "backbone" of Marriott's strategy. They're not interested in giving away "too many free nights", but rather want their guests to wonder "why they would ever join another hotel loyalty program.”
I assume the "article" was written primarily by Marriott's marketing staff, which makes the numerous flat out erroneous/false statements even more remarkable.

The biggest lie of course is the overall premise. It's pretty clear to any objective observer that Marriott Corporate considers footprint and corporate contracts as its biggest strengths, views elites as captives, and will only make positive changes to its program as a matter of absolute competitive necessity.
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Old Jan 16, 2021, 9:32 am
  #48  
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Originally Posted by Kacee
I assume the "article" was written primarily by Marriott's marketing staff, which makes the numerous flat out erroneous/false statements even more remarkable.

The biggest lie of course is the overall premise. It's pretty clear to any objective observer that Marriott Corporate considers footprint and corporate contracts as its biggest strengths, views elites as captives, and will only make positive changes to its program as a matter of absolute competitive necessity.
So, then compete.

David
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Old Jan 16, 2021, 9:31 pm
  #49  
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Originally Posted by kaizen7
The only things that held members from defecting to other program are Marriott own footprint and interesting properties within their portfolio.
Originally Posted by Kacee
I assume the "article" was written primarily by Marriott's marketing staff, which makes the numerous flat out erroneous/false statements even more remarkable.

The biggest lie of course is the overall premise. It's pretty clear to any objective observer that Marriott Corporate considers footprint and corporate contracts as its biggest strengths, views elites as captives, and will only make positive changes to its program as a matter of absolute competitive necessity.
Through sheer incompetence, or neglect of the long-term aspirations of its most loyal guests, Marriott has managed to turn its trademarked loyalty brand name, Bonv°y™, into a pejorative past participle.

“We've been Bonv°yed!“
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Old Jan 17, 2021, 4:50 am
  #50  
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Originally Posted by dcstudent
I've now had 4 stays as Ambassador this year. Three were one-night stays, one was a two night stay. I'll post full reviews on the appropriate master threads but here are the parts that matter most to ambassador level folks. Please note, I did not reach out to the Ambassador service for any sort of assistance on either of these stays.

Marriott Cleveland East: 2 night stay Sunday and Monday night: Welcomed as being a Bonvoy member. No mention of Ambassador. Upgraded from base king to corner king (since upgrades and room availability are so opaque, I don't know if anything else was available. Lounge closed, provided tickets for complementary a la carte breakfast in restaurant (given to all Plats and above on request) in addition to welcome points.

Marriott Lexington KY: 1 Night Stay on a Saturday: Welcomed as Ambassador. Upgraded from base king to corner king. Hotel has multiple suites, but they are not even bookable online ever so not sure what gives. Asked about breakfast, as lounge closed, I was provided tickets for $25 fresh bites. Not informed that the breakfast was in lieu of welcome points until I noticed welcome points were missing when stay posted. Not worth chasing.

Marriott Lexington, KY: 1 Night Stay on a Tuesday: Not welcomed as a returning guest or Bonvoy member. Booked base King, got a corner King. Suites again exist but are literally not bookable online so not sure whether anything is considered "standard".

Marriott Greenville, SC: 1 Night Stay on a Friday: Welcomed as Ambassador. Upgraded to huge full 1 bedroom suite. Provided tickets for full breakfast in restaurant + welcome points. Was told if I wanted water/snacks to come to front desk and certain items would be complimentary because of lounge closure. (This was probably my 2nd best stay during COVID hands down and a top stay generally as far as staff quality and honoring elite benefits. Staff was amazing, especially given I had never stayed here before. (#1 stay was at a hotel where they know me))
Thanks for the detailed posts. You are actually doing much better then me (multi year ambassador) with both recognition and upgrades.

I have heard now from a couple of front desk staff that they have taken at least some suites out of inventory. Not using the rooms at all, for either paid stays or upgrades.
Probably to save wear-and-tear while room rates are down, as well as any differential in housekeeping costs.

So a major benefit is pretty much restricted.
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Old Jan 18, 2021, 9:48 am
  #51  
 
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Originally Posted by khabah
Following up on the above, I just read this article about how Bonvoy is the "backbone" of Marriott's strategy. They're not interested in giving away "too many free nights", but rather want their guests to wonder "why they would ever join another hotel loyalty program."

At this point, after all this, I wonder if Marriott's top brass are senile, straight-up delusional or really dislike where they work to the point that they themselves are sabotaging it from within. Double-you tee eff.

Pasting below to avoid the annoying registration wall.

khabah

***

How Marriott Is Fighting To Save The Golden Goose: Its Loyalty Program

NationalHotel
January 13, 2021 Walker & Dunlop Benjamin Paltiel, Bisnow Custom Content WriterFor major hospitality companies, the coronavirus pandemic has imperiled not just their day-to-day business model but also their most important lifelines: the loyalty programs that they have spent tens of billions of dollars building and that set them apart from their upstart home-sharing competitors.

Hotel conglomerates like Marriott International have occupied a precarious position when it comes to keeping the goodwill of their most active customers. With business travel at a crawl, many longtime loyalty members would have lost the elite status that took them years to build.

The executives in charge of Marriott’s Bonvoy loyalty program have had to balance incentivizing guests to use their services while making sure they didn’t revoke members’ status or give away too many free nights of stay at a time when the bottom line for hotels has never been weaker.

“Bonvoy is the backbone of our strategy,” Marriott International Group President for Consumer Operations, Technology and Emerging Businesses Stephanie Linnartz said on the most recent Walker & Dunlop Walker Webcast.

The hope, she said, is to make guests ask themselves "why they would ever join another hotel loyalty program.”

Under Marriott’s rules from years past, it would have been very difficult for anyone to earn or retain their elite status in 2020, Linnartz said. Revenue per available room, a prominent metric in judging hotel performance, fell from its 2019 peak by a shocking 85% across Marriott’s global portfolio of hotel brands in Q2 2020. And though leisure travel has ticked up month by month through 2020, occupancy is still nowhere near 2019 levels, with business and group travel still at record low levels.

As the pandemic set in, Linnartz and her colleagues sprung into action to overhaul the loyalty program. The company offered widespread leniency, extending the elite status that members earned in 2019 through 2022, ensuring that members wouldn’t be kicked off for not using rooms during the pandemic. The free nights of stay that come along with status may hurt more to give away than they would in another year, but Linnartz said they are a small price to pay for continued customer loyalty.

Even as demand for hotel rooms has taken a severe hit, pricing has remained largely consistent, Linnartz said, as slashing pricing was unlikely to drive more demand. Many of Marriott's largest corporate accounts, including Microsoft and consulting giants Deloitte, McKinsey and Accenture, have chosen simply to roll over their 2020 pricing into 2021 rather than renegotiate.

But as much as saving Bonvoy has been about playing defense, Linnartz said that her team has worked to find new ways of getting customers to engage and spend with Marriott brands during the pandemic. The Bonvoy-branded credit card began offering miles for nontravel purchases like gas and groceries. And Marriott has continued to expand nontraditional stay options: Marriott Homes & Villas, the company’s vacation rental platform, has expanded into North America after a successful pilot in Europe, and the company will also grow its fleet of Ritz-Carlton-branded luxury yacht cruises.

After it acquired Starwood Hotels & Resorts in 2016, Marriott became the world’s largest hotel company, with 30 different brands in its portfolio. On the webcast, Walked & Dunlop CEO Willy Walker asked Linnartz whether the pandemic might be a time to take stock of those many brands and build back under fewer banners, but Linnartz expressed confidence that the brands are more likely to grow than merge.

“In this day and age, the more choices we can offer the consumer in terms of size and scale, the more attractive Marriott Bonvoy is,” she said. “It's really the flywheel of being part of our travel platform. I think we have hands-down the best hotel brands in the industry, at all price points. The same guest who might stay at a Ritz-Carlton for certain stay occasions might want to book a room at the Courtyard by Marriott to go to their kid's soccer tournament.”

The synergy of having all those disparate brands under the Marriott umbrella is something that gives Linnartz faith in the future of Marriott’s brands as it faces competition from much younger companies. Walker pointed out that Airbnb’s market capitalization currently sits at around $100B, almost 50% more than the market caps of Marriott International and Hilton combined. Linnartz pointed to the importance not just of brand loyalty but of longevity when it comes to success.

“Airbnb has really built an admirable platform,” Linnartz said. “I think it’s great to see them become a public company. Marriott has been a public company since 1953.”
Well if nothing else it gave me a good laugh! Marriott need to be inventive, creative and drive loyalty at this time, nothing about Marriott Bonvoy and its marketing do that, quite the opposite in my opinion!
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Old Jan 18, 2021, 12:02 pm
  #52  
 
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Originally Posted by goodeats21
I have heard now from a couple of front desk staff that they have taken at least some suites out of inventory. Not using the rooms at all, for either paid stays or upgrades. Probably to save wear-and-tear while room rates are down, as well as any differential in housekeeping costs.
So a major benefit is pretty much restricted.
That makes sense then as to why the Lex KY Marriott they don't even show as bookable on any date. The suites look wonderful (pics online) - some even have balconies. But, yes, not much of a benefit if they are blocked.
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Old Jan 18, 2021, 3:58 pm
  #53  
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Originally Posted by dcstudent
That makes sense then as to why the Lex KY Marriott they don't even show as bookable on any date.
Could be. But there are also many US Marriotts that have rarely, if ever, allowed suites to be booked online.
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Old Jan 19, 2021, 12:12 am
  #54  
 
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Originally Posted by UKTraveller4Fun
Well if nothing else it gave me a good laugh! Marriott need to be inventive, creative and drive loyalty at this time, nothing about Marriott Bonvoy and its marketing do that, quite the opposite in my opinion!
They already did that! They creatively inventing more excuses to drive off loyalty program members away from their hotels and into the competitors. 🤣
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Old Jan 19, 2021, 7:09 am
  #55  
 
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As the pandemic set in, Linnartz and her colleagues sprung into action to overhaul the loyalty program.
By forcing through all those massive category devaluations in the midst of a raging pandemic, while other chains had put planned category changes on hold?

By forcing through hard landings of status (i.e. double downgrades) when soft landings had always been the policy until that point?
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Old Jan 19, 2021, 7:30 am
  #56  
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Originally Posted by yurtripper
By forcing through all those massive category devaluations in the midst of a raging pandemic, while other chains had put planned category changes on hold?

By forcing through hard landings of status (i.e. double downgrades) when soft landings had always been the policy until that point?
And, of particular relevance to this thread, firing the ambassadors and making it more clear than ever that ambassador is even more meaningless than Hilton Diamond.
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Old Jan 19, 2021, 4:45 pm
  #57  
 
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xxxxx

Last edited by DJ_Iceman; Jan 19, 2021 at 6:38 pm Reason: changed my mind
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Old Jan 19, 2021, 4:57 pm
  #58  
 
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Originally Posted by kaizen7
They already did that! They creatively inventing more excuses to drive off loyalty program members away from their hotels and into the competitors. 🤣
This is so true. I give my hotel nights to the properties that treat me well and if I re-qualify for AMB then great. Otherwise, I am directing all of my spend to Hyatt. Marriott continues to demonstrate that they don’t care about their top tier as a customers, but I will gladly do business with the individual properties that are continuing to be great hotels!
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Old Jan 20, 2021, 1:15 pm
  #59  
 
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Originally Posted by anteater
This is so true. I give my hotel nights to the properties that treat me well and if I re-qualify for AMB then great. Otherwise, I am directing all of my spend to Hyatt. Marriott continues to demonstrate that they don’t care about their top tier as a customers, but I will gladly do business with the individual properties that are continuing to be great hotels!
I will be dong the same. Will be focusing more on properties that treat me well.
As I live in Asia and most of my trips will be Asia Pacific region (with once or twice a year vacation to Europe and Middle East) I quite lucky that Bonvoy hotel has treated me well.

I did have Accor as back up. Unfortunately, while their coverage was very decent here in APAC region, their quality properties was much less than Bonvoy.
They did have Raffles which is better than whatever Bonvoy can throw, but the number are very limited.
Accor Fairmont is somewhat similar to The Ritz Carltons (no complimentary access to that just like RC)
The rest are quite weak.

As for the program itself, unfortunately Bonvoy still offer better benefit than Accor ALL.
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Old Jan 27, 2021, 5:57 am
  #60  
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I was looking in my spam filter for something, and noticed an email from "Ambassador Service Team". Subject "How is your Ambassador Service Experience?"

I thought maybe it was a survey based on my recent contact with the call center, but it is actually a survey on overall Ambassador experience.

Cathartic to detail the many failings of Ambassador status, but doubtful it will change.
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