Arnon

I'm looking in awe at Americans who get all the credit cards and dozens of offers and I have to admit I'm a bit jealous.

I'm quite loyal to Marriott - I stay about 40 nights in Marriott regularly, but because I am can't get the cards in Europe where I am, I never get any of those multipliers or extra benefits and I stay 'just gold', whereas someone with cards can make it to Titanium with similar nights/spend.

I feel like we're very disadvantaged here. Is there someone at Marriott who would want to talk about this, maybe create some incentives from countries where they're present but not as aggressive with their offers?

craigthemif

Hotels in North America also rarely upgrade and do everything possible to limit the elite benefits provided. Because basically everybody who wants to be is Platinum or higher... And if you want a time machine to look at Marriott in 3-4 years time, just look at Hilton today. (no more free breakfast, forget about upgrades, etc.) Making everybody in Europe a Platinum too is no solution...

What can you do? Be a free agent and discover that non-chain hotels offer the same product at a lower price.

eponymous_coward

The USA has thousands of Marriott hotels. Denmark has five (all in Copenhagen).

"A chain that is primarily centered in the USA spends a lot of time marketing in that market, especially since there are competitors like Hilton/IHG/Hyatt also active in US markets" isn't exactly a shock.

Perhaps you should lobby the EU for removing restrictions on credit card interchange fees. The lack of them in the US is what makes US credit card partnerships between banks and airlines/hotels/travel partners particularly lucrative in ways that the credit card market in the EU isn't.

Arnon

getting right on it

belfordrocks

Be a free agent. Often I find chain hotels not worth it outside the US, when you consider the incremental benefits it provides vs the higher cost.

oldfolky

100%. I’ve tried to be somewhat loyal to marriot and other chains since moving to Australia and it just doesn’t offer much benefit. I still have a Marriott card from when I lived in the US and more or less maintain gold. The hotels are oriented towards people coming from overseas, global contracts, airlines staff etc. and are just more expensive than what is offered locally.

I just book what I want when I need. You’ll also find some of the hotel booking portals appear in airline shopping portals and can give quite a good return. Booking.com on the BA shopping portal is a good deal, often at 8avios/£ and that really works for domestic flights on qantas.

SkyLich

To be fair, the. the comment is accurate.

America's generous credit card offerings are funded by the fees charged to merchants by the card processors. We used to have lesser but still worthwhile benefits with debit cards as well, until the government forced those down, and voila, our debit cards became as lacking in incentives as Euro credit cards (which also have low capped interchange fees).

Research has shown that the savings from lowered processing fees went into merchant's bottom line, not the pockets of consumers as promised. The largest retail corporations like Walmart benefitted immensely and lobbied heavily for the law.

Never one to easily give up on a terrible idea, the Senator who ruined debit cards with interchange price fixing legislation wants to do the same to credit cards next, as do Walmart, Amazon, Home Depot etc.

eponymous_coward

Exactly this.

Hotels are not handing out credit card benefits in US markets from the goodness of their hearts. It’s a business decision and it makes financial sense. “BUT WHYYYYYY DON’TYOU LOVE US IN EUROPE?!?!!!? ISN’T THERE ANYTHING WE CAN DO?!?!? PRETTY PLEASE?!??!?”isn’t going to change how the finances work in the US and in the EU, or Asia, or wherever.

Every so often someone in the FT forums goes “IT’S NOT FAAAIR” about how miles and points work with US credit cards. It has nothing to do with fair. It has to do with how US chains make money in US markets with US laws and regulations on credit cards. Like it or not, if you pick loyalty to a US chain and you’re based outside that chain’s core markets, you’re going to be second banana. Either settle for the best deal you can get or walk away and be a free agent as suggested. It’s just how US hotel chains run their business.

redhead_pt

OP could also presumably consider doing Amex global transfer to get a US issues AMEX with some sort of mail forwarding service… if they were REALLY determined.

EuropeanPete

Some hotels and hotel chains have non-American residents more disadvantaged than others. Marriott is probably the most extreme, with thousands upon thousands of lifetime Platinums and Titaniums just from owning a credit card for some years.

Bonvoy's sweet spot is for people with a few US credit cards and who do 30 or so nights a year. If that's not you, you're better off elsewhere - given that as far as reliability and trustworthiness goes, the grass really is greener on the other side as far as Bonvoy goes. I get value out of my Hyatt Globalist status, but despite having lifetime Bonvoy Platinum and apparently near eternal free Hilton Diamond, I have little incentive to ever stay at these chains. Build a good relationship with a Virtuoso advisor (there are a handful not in the US) and/ or make use of Hotels.com or rocketmiles.

notquiteaff

A few months ago I would have suggested hotels.com as a brand-agnostic hotel ”loyalty” program. But they are about to kill that with their consolidation of hotels.com rewards into the new all-Expedia-brands OneKey program, cutting the reward value from 10% to about 2%.

Hotel.com rewards becoming OneKey

PES_B1

Marriott now is Japan+US+China mainly. If you live elsewhere go onboard with IHG.

pinniped

What about Booking.com? They seem Europe-centric in general and have a rewards program. I've only dabbled in it so never gotten past the first level, but even that has generated little discounts on airport taxis and such. (Small spend, a few percent rewards, I figure an "elite" with them does a lot better.)

Booking.com also gets you access to apartments/houses without the Airbnb nonsense. More professional operators, at least in my experience in a few different European cities.

If I were based in Europe, I wouldn't invest a ton in American chains - just like as an American I've never really tried to go far with Sofitel and the like. I'm simply outside their target market and wouldn't generate enough volume for them to ever care about me.

notquiteaff

Hopefully someone else can chime in, perhaps with some pointers to other relevant discussions. I haven’t really started looking at alternatives to hotels.com for my hotel bookings where I don’t want to use a “native” loyalty program (or unaffiliated hotels).

I did consider AA hotels earlier this year to earn loyalty points for AA status.

craigthemif

Booking.com is so badly compromised with scammers that I would never ever recommend anybody use it regularly...

You might think you would recognise phishing attempts, etc. but they come from inside the official booking.com communication system with all of your relevant details.