Since I was attempting to make a reservation I called the Platinum Reservations line. They still had the "old" point value and even after speaking to a supervisor.

Not that it's a tremendous amount of consolation to you today, but Marriott Concierge's post did say that it was going to be effective for reservations made after March 8, 2010.

Well, right now its 14.00 in the UK on March 9th 2010, and Ren Chancery Court is still a cat 8 :confused:

And as someone mentioned on a blog, it would have been nice for the Cat 1-5 changes to be listed in advance, so folk could redeem for the lesser amount if a property they wanted was going up. Cheers.

I'm late to the party as usual....just came across this thread today. But I'd like to also add my note of thanks to Andrew and to Marriott. In general, I definitely like what I see!

I don't disagree, I just wish we could see more of the changes (i.e. Cat. 1-5 hotels.) :eek:

It's now "after March 8, 2010" just about everywhere.:rolleyes:

I find it interesting that two (really one) of the properties that is moving up is the St Thomas resort and hotel from a 6 to 7...I could have sworn I'd heard more unhappy people than not. Oh well

Starr Pass is still listed as a Cat. 6.

Have any changes occurred at all, or was this just a nonsensical thread like the newspaper delivery thread?

I also saw the Kauai propety did not drop to 5 as promised.

:rolleyes:

Good Morning, all.

For those of you on Insiders, I apologize in advance for the repeat message.

I just checked back with our Program Infrastructure team, and, in fact, the changes began to take place March 8 as announced. It turns out these changes will not be 100% completed until Friday, March 12 - mostly related to systems/processing. Please contact customer care (as noted above) if your reservation may be affected.

Thanks all for your patience and understanding.

Regards,

Andrew

Deleted

Is there a centralized listing of all the hotel category changes anywhere (i.e. expanding the Cat. 6-8 list already provided?)

Thanks.

Agree - would like to see the centralized listing.

Cheers.

+1 on your requests for that complete list ^ !

Updated Res
 

My points stay reservation for the JW Marriott Ihilani in August was updated to reflect the new point requirements (Cat 7 - Cat 6) with no action on my part overnight.

That's pretty great on Marriott's part. Let's just hope they aren't doing that in the other direction also.

I see some new changes reflected in the Marriott hotel category lists now.

Still would be nice to get the centralized list.

Cheers.

Yeah, it would. I'm guessing that's not going to happen.

One noticeable drop in the DC area:

Westfields Marriott Washington Dulles went from a category 4 to 3.

Renaissance London Heathrow Hotel has dropped from 5 to 4.

Downtown New Orleans hotels all seem to be unchanged.

Marriott Hotel Category Changes - 2010
 

Since it looks like Marriott isn't going to publish a list of all the hotel category changes they have made for this year, I thought it might be helpful for us to make one for ourselves.

Marriott Concierge has published all hotel category changes for Cat. 6-8 hotels and those can be found in the http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/marri...y-changes.html thread.

Please post any Cat. 1-5 hotel category changes (either up or down) that you come across and I will update the list below.

Thanks.


Hotels Moving Down a Category Level

Current Cat 5 moving to Cat 4
Renaissance London Heathrow
Ren Club Sport Walnut Creek

Current Cat 4 moving to Cat 3
Oakland Marriott City Center
Westfields Marriott Washington Dulles
Kansas City Overland Park Marriott
Kansas City Airport Marriott

Current Cat 3 moving to Cat 2
Courtyard KC East/Blue Springs
Springhill Suites Overland Park

Hotels Moving up a Category Level

Current Cat 2 moving to Cat 3
Courtyard Tysons Corner Fairfax
Fairfield Lee's Summit (Kansas City area)
Springhill Suites Lawrence (Kansas City area)

Current Cat 3 moving to Cat 4
Courtyard Denver Downtown
Kansas City Downtown Marriott

Current Cat 4 moving to Cat 5
Cairo Marriott Hotel & Omar Khayyam Casino

Moved Up from Cat 2 -> Cat 3
Courtyard Tysons Corner Fairfax

Moving Up:

Courtyard Denver Downtown: 3 -> 4
Courtyard Jersey Newport: 3 -> 4

Moving Down:
Oakland Marriott City Center: 4 -> 3
Ren Club Sport Walnut Creek: 5 -> 4

Moving Up:

Cairo Marriott Hotel & Omar Khayyam Casino Cat.4 -> Cat.5

Surprised Westfields is moving down: that's actually a very good Marriott. I know room rates and demand factor into these things and that particular Marriott relies a lot on big corporate event business: perhaps the general scaling back of those types of events in 2008-2009 had an impact.

Not surprised about Cairo. It was an excellent value as a 4 and still a fair value as a 5.

Loyalty traveler blog will publish a complete list of changes, probably over the weekend. I am about 60% through the spreadsheet now and working on category 3 which is the largest hotel category.

what a joke

anything above 1 is a reason not to stay at this place

I PM'd MarriottConcierge and asked them specifically to post a list. It shouldn't be up to travelers to try & figure it out. Cheers.

I definitely don't disagree, but we have asked about a list being provided since the change was first posted. So while I would love for Marriott to provide one, I'm not going to hold my breath for it. :eek:

I'm confused about why people need/want a list. If I'm looking to travel somewhere I look at what hotels are available and how many points they will cost me now. I don't care what they were last year. Am I missing something here?

Stop making sense!:D

This is Flyertalk, where we micromange our frequent traveler programs. We will pi$$ and moan about every change in the system. We will take take trips to places we don't care about because they "were a good use of points because we got .0231234221232 cents per point." Etc. etc. :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Your reality check was well placed.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I have a few reasons.

1. I do have travel plans over the next 12 months that I have already planned out. A downward change in a hotel might be enough to make me rethink where I am using my points. (Yeah, every Marriott rewards member could go back and re-check every trip they have coming up over the next year or so to see if any of the hotels in the areas they are staying at dropped, but why not go to a single list of hotels rather than recheck each area hotel individually?)

2. If someone already has an award reservation and the hotel drops, they might be able to get some points back. (Yeah, I know someone posted that their reservation as automatically updated with points being redeposited, but personally I like checking every reservation personally just to make sure there aren't any "accidents".) But I guess everyone could also check each and every award reservation to see if any hotel they already have a reservation for has changed categories. Or if there were a nice listing of all the changes, those persons could check all their hotels at once rather than individually on Marriott's website.

3. I may have a Cat. 1-4 hotel cert to use. A Cat 4 to 5 raise would drop a possible location of my list of vacation spots. A drop from Cat. 5 to 4 might give me another possible location to look at. I guess after the category change I could again look at every possible vacation spot I thought about to see if a hotel is now useable by my cert. Or I could just look at the list of all changes to see what has changed.

4. Personally, I am wondering why Marriott didn't publish this list. They would have had to have it to make all the needed changes, but for some reason they didn't want any of their customers to see what hotels were going to change categories before the changes were made. I'd like to see just how many hotels (and which ones) changed up or down categories.

5. By being able to see exactly which hotels were raised and which dropped a category, we might be able to see some area trends. (i.e. if every hotel in an area rose by a category but one, why not that one hotel?) Due to this, I might change where I might have made an award reservation.

6. The list would have been of more value if we had it BEFORE the category changes as someone could have locked in a lower category level for a hotel they were thinking about. But this leads me right back to #4 and we may have at least one of the reasons Marriott didn't want anyone to know what these changes were going to be.

To follow up on HHoope's comments.

I am looking at the big picture of comparative value between hotel loyalty programs. I can conclusively state that Marriott retains strong value in its hotel awards due to a member-friendly distribution of hotels among its categories compared to say Hilton or Starwood.

Every program likes to say they are the best and pick their attributes to publicize as support for the claim of being the best program.

I knock Marriott frequently on their high threshold for elite membership, but when it comes to hotel award nights, Marriott mostly rocks and Hilton mostly sucks.

Hotel loyalty programs are multi-billion dollar businesses that have more than 50 million members collecting points based on some inherent value. Every time hotel award categories change, the value of points in that program changes.

Keeping track of award category changes helps identify which programs are offering their members a fair deal by keeping hotel awards in line with hotel rates.

I don't understand why Marriott kept their hotel category changes under wraps until after the new award levels took effect.

Hotel award value (the cost in points for a free night vs. the room rate for a free night) is one of Marriott's strongest competitive advantages and I would think they would want to promote that aspect of Marriott Rewards more to their members and the public.

WHY????????????????????????????

well b/c if i'm going to a place I've already been, I believe/think I know what cat it is being rated/charged at and base my plans for using points on that.. then when i find out later that its a higher cat that I don't want to spend that much for.. I could be in a bind by having to go find another place that has a more reasonable value; on the contrary.. if it has gone down.. a place I may not have considered now comes into play as a possibility

and our Cat 1-5 certs.. it makes a huge difference if something switched cat from 5 to 6 or down to a five

is that enough?

I received a PM from MC that they will NOT be posting the changes. I appreciate hearing from MC. However, it also came w/ one of the most lame-arse excuses I've ever heard, but I blame Marriott, not MC. I don't think I can quote a PM contents w/o permission, but will check w/ Bruce on that (although frankly I don't think it's that personal).

Cheers.

I received a PM from MC that they will NOT be posting the changes. I appreciate hearing from MC. However, it also came w/ one of the most lame-arse excuses I've ever heard, but I blame Marriott, not MC. I don't think I can quote a PM contents w/o permission, but will check w/ Bruce on that (although frankly I don't think it's that personal).

Cheers.

If I worked at Marriott, and was offered the FT MC job I would run in the other direction.

This the 3rd person that has been asked to make an announcement, they make it - and then corporate manages to scr*w it up somehow.

Is this job a punishment for some other transgression in the Marriott world? :D

And I agree with SkiAdcock - it isn't Andrew who should be taking the comments on this......