Platinum renewal issues
 

Hello,

Just wanting to know if there is anyone who has had any experience with getting a special circumstances status extension and if there is an email address where these kind of requests can be sent? Being in Australia we are not able to leave the country and can hardly even travel within the country so this is making it very difficult to reach the status again this year.
I usually travel for work and with this not on the cards for this year at all just wanting to know what options i have as hate to let it slip and need to start again.
We also dont have any access to credit card deals i dont believe in Australia unless i am mistaken?
thanks for your help

- Never heard of this but you can try. You can log into your account, scroll down to Customer Support and click on "For Members". Then navigate to one of the menus where you can type in your issue. Another way would be to send a direct tweet to the Marriott/Bonvoy team. My other concern is that the prospects of Australia to open even sometimes in 2022 are not so great...

If you are already Platinum, you should have been gifted 25 nights. So you are 25 nights short. I don't think that Marriott is inclined to do anything extra, especially if the hotels in Australia are actually open. Marriott consistently sent emails to UK-based members in the early part of the year, suggesting local getaways when in fact Brits were also locked down and couldn't even legally check into hotels. So they are also completely deaf to non-USA issues...

You might be able to do a Platinum challenge in 2022 or beyond to recover your status though.

Hotels in Australia are partially open, a selection of them have been taken over by the Govt as medi hotels for quarantine and majority of the others are either in CBD locations or not worth the buck given how dated they are so a bit of waste of money staying in them.

While this is probably true, Marriott does have the ability to target account offers at specific geographies so it's very important that if you are in Australia and re-qualification proves to be a widespread problem then you must ensure your account address is registered as Australia.

This may sound obvious but I remember at the start of the pandemic Marriott did do something for members registered in China and associated territories (we got our FNAs extended IIRC or something like that) and there were some complaints from people who were in China but whose account addresses were not. We're going back a bit so details are hazy I'm afraid but the principle is that Marriott can apply fixes to accounts in addresses based on territory.

(a) there would need to be a VP/boss responsible for Bonvoy membership in Australia
(b) there would need to be a critical mass of Platinum Bonvoy members not re-qualifying in 2020 despite the 25 gifted nights
(c) the VP would need to recognise this and care and argue the case in HQ for a regional extension of status

I would say that if re-qualification is a real problem in Australia then this sequence is more likely than an individual getting an exception but you never know until you try.

Has Marriott done soft landings in the past for elites?

Yes, but they were also #bonvoyed away...

(and to be honest, a level below Platinum is mostly worthless)

Four Points Auckland has been taken over as a Quarantine hotel till 2022. Most of the Sydney Hotels Downtown have also been taken over for hotel Quarantine and with International borders closed which is where I would make up the bulk of my + 50 nights I won't re qualify this year. I hope Bonvoy do take the Australia/New Zealand or any Country driven border closures into consideration. At the moment I can't even travel within Australia to try qualify due to current internal border closures.

Staycation in Melbourne?