Agreed. I'd love to give SPG or Hyatt a shot if they had enough properties where I travel...but they don't. I'm almost 100% loyal to Marriott but the last year the thought has crossed my mind more than once to give another brand a shot. The problem is brand offerings in the places I travel... I have been enjoying some HGIs in a couple of the spots I used to stay at Courtyards but besides those few and far between stays, I'm almost entirely in FS Marriots and Rens. The Ren I stay at I am upgraded to a very nice suite 80-90% of the time but that is just because of how often I stay and the staff taking care of me. Another reason I stick with Marriott.

Kinda my thoughts, too. Silver <> 'Loyalty' for a road warrior.

And, once the timeshare's paid for, it's just the yearly $maint/tax$ going to Marriott.

Show 'em the nights/ca$h/etc., and I suspect Marriott would notice you more.

I have to take another jab at Marriott, Courtyard to be specific. Their current advertising tag line is something along "...business hotel designed by business people..." I guess those who designed the Courtyards and gave their input on what benefits business travelers might like do not eat breakfast. There are times when I am on the road when breakfast and the airplane dinner meal are the only meals of the day that I have time for. Most of my work days on the road are non stop with no lunch breaks, when I finish between 2:30 to 3:00 pm, then have to drive between 35 to 50 miles to the airport, turn in the rental car, clear security and get on a plane that leaves between 4:30 and 5 p.m.

One more reason not to choose a Courtyard over an HGI.

On a different note, I cannot take credit for the Courtyard jab. This post was funny and to the point:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/13025194-post7.html

Actually, this is one of the reasons I like Courtyards is that I can get a real breakfast there, not some lame scrambled egg soup and a bagel.

Give me eggs cooked to order, bacon, biscuits with sausage gravy, waffle, juice and some fruit so I feel healthy.

Business Hotel = Business Traveler = I don't mind spending a few buck for a real breakfast.

Megabonus offer 2010 tempts, but again, I already said No to my old friend Marriott!!!

That's great for you. My experience was a bit different. I called reservations late Saturday night and got transferred to the internal customer care line (not the regular customer service line which was closed at that time). The guy on that line called the property, and no one was available with authority to decide on a refund since only managers can approve refunds. He told me to cancel the second night to get back the certificate, so I agreed to do that. Later, I found out that this did not work

SS managers only are on duty from 6-11 am on weekends. I ended up missing the manager by 30 minutes on Sunday. I was told to call the GM on Monday. I did this Monday afternoon and got his voicemail. He did not return my call, so I called Tuesday afternoon and was told that they decided to adopt a full refund policy for all no shows for last Friday and Saturday due to the snow. Great, except my second night was using the free night certificate given to Hyatt diamond members. I did not get this certificate back, and I will have to go through Hyatt's customer service to get that worked out. I was charged for that first night, and I have to go back and make sure they reverse the charge.

I still stand by my personal experience with Marriott. I have gotten waivers at least 6-8 times, and it did not require nearly as much effort as my first experience with Hyatt.

In response to those questioning others loyalty to MR.. is it that you only stay at MR? Is it how many total nights you send MR's way? or is it the % of your nights you send to MR?

where is this (loyalty thing) defined?

plat since 2001

however, In this same span I was
Hh diamond during the same period thru 2006.. Gold since then
SPG Plat since 2001 and have requalified for this year
Hyatt diamond since 2004.. and have requalified for this year
Goldpoints Plus Gold (Radisson) since 2008.. requaled this year
PC Gold.. requaled this year

since I haven't spent all or even half of my nights at Marriots.. am I loyal?

True, but the lounges are open, we are getting breakfasts. Plus the ample promotions at Hyatt and SPG.

Do you still give Marriott enough nights to reach Gold or Plat? If so, then, yes, you are still loyal. If not, then not so much.

Be a gold or diamond with Hilton and you will not have to pay a few bucks for breakfast at any Hilton brand hotel. And that is a benefit available 7 days a week, 365 days a year, unlike Marriott where it is available, most of the time only during the week and not available at Resorts or Vacation spots.

A similar doom and gloom was present on this board when Marriott announced their "enhancements" to the point redemption program not too long ago. Hilton came out and bluntly said "we are increasing the point redemption levels." Marriott called it an "enhancement" and sugar coated it by giving PLATs a 50% bonus. Over the last two years I have been treated very well by Hyatt, SPG and Hilton so I will continue to use them for all my travel. All reward programs will change over time to tweak a few more dollars for the bottom line. You just have to look at what fits your travel pattern best and go with that. I remember when you could upgrade CO's cheapest fare to Biz for 20k miles each way with no copays. Now it cost $500 each way. I still fly CO when their schedule fits my schedule.

That's not my point at all! We manage our expenses carefully and this past year everyone has made a conscious effort to reduce them as much as possible due to the down economy. So for the geographies I travel in, perhaps it is different in your geography, I can get as good a flexible rate by booking direct with one of the majors as by going with a third party booking portal. It’s a win-win situation for everyone (my employer and I). One of the things that helps make this happen is I am eligible to use corporate negotiated rates which are approx. %10 lower than the normal street rate. Many business travelers also have access to corporate negotiated rates. That said I occasionally book AAA or other special flexible rates when they happen to be better than my corporate rate. I.e. I save my employer (company) as much money as possible rather than maximizing my points earning by booking unnecessarily high rates and I still manage to wind up accruing a fairly large number of points.

--Jon

Just so I understand you correctly, you are saying you would have preferred Marriott to NOT hand out a 50% bonus to Plats and to have said we are increaseing points for awards? (I read it that way based on your seeming approval of Hilton's approach over Marriott's.)

I don't know about you, but basically Marriott's "sugar" coating was one of the few things I did appreciate. Yeah, it would have been nice if they were more upfront with the program devaluation, but at least they did offer their best customers (Plats) something to help ease the pain.

Ahhh...I forgot that one. What exactly is Marriott's logic in discouraging elite members from using the Courtyard brand?

No other chain does this - both the withholding of the elite benefits and the withholding of points on incidentals at limited-service brands.

This one hits closer to home in my reasons for leaving Marriott in 2010: I know my pattern will be many short suburban stays. That sort of writes off Marriott unless I'm willing to drive farther and spend more to get to one of the (rarer) suburban FS Renaissance/Marriott properties, many of which tend to be airport hotels. Stay-based programs will be better for me anyway, but I would still cobble together enough EQN to hit Gold or maybe even low Plat.

I will probably select a mix of limited- and full-service hotels next year, but the elite rules take CY totally off the board. There's also the 50% points penalty at RI so, even though I like the format, I'm not going to select those. I have decided to go Starwood with HH as a backup.

I just wish I understood the lodging industry enough to know why Marriott seems to be taking every possible measure to ensure that someone with my 2010 stay pattern will never select them in the future. Do they cut so many large-corporate deals that they're selling out their limited service brands without people like me? Are they always selling out their "resort" brands with non-elites who are more profitable per room than I would be? I know they aren't packing their FS properties on weekends...I can only assume that they are trying to drive occupancy down as close to 0 as possible because our cheap weekend nights are actually moneylosers. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me...

If my stay pattern was 4-night business trips, during the week, to FS properties not arbitrarily tagged as "resorts", then Marriott would still be the #1 choice because of the Plat benefits and the Travel Package rewards. Can Marriott be profitable with only that type of guest?

Both Marriott and Hilton followed a similar approach: a devaluation paired with an upward nudge in points earning. HH added an easy Diamond path for current non-Diamonds (granted, the Surpass card emerged a few months before the devaluation, but I guess we should have seen the writing on the wall). Marriott added an enhancement which appears mostly genuine - the removal of the "Stay Anytime" award.

My biggest problem with the HH devaluation was that they dropped an en masse Category shift on top of it. It's a double-whammy, unless they move some Cat 7's back to 6 and some 6's back to 5. (4's on down are less relevant.)