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......

Well that's certainly guest friendly.:rolleyes: It can't be any harder than a cut and paste so I'm not sure what reason they could possibly have come up with. :confused:

This is great news - I always like to see fewer points for anything!

I have to say that this is definitely the right move for this property. I was there about a month ago and while it has a FANTASTIC location, the hotel itself was nothing special. You would think that in order for a hotel to be rated a Cat8, it would need to have both a top-notch location as well as being an incredible property itself.

That was my first time to a Cat8 hotel and it didn't impress me.

That's not how the categories are determined (not directly, anyway). It's strictly based on the prices the hotel is able to charge for rooms.

Mostly, it's the nicest properties in the best locations that are the most expensive, so that's what you'll see at category 8, but the way they get to category 8 is the cost of the rooms.

I thought part of the category determination was based on # of awards redeemed there, in addition to price.

Cheers.

I noticed several of the full service Marriott's in Kansas City have changed:

Downtown: up from 3 to 4
Country Club: same at 5
Overland Park: down from 4 (or 5) to 3
Airport: down from 4 to 3

A few other changes:
Courtyard KC East/Blue Springs: down from 3 to 2
Springhill Suites Overland Park: down from 3 to 2
Fairfield Lee's Summit: up from 2 to 3
Springhill Suites Lawrence: up from 2 to 3

Marriott Hotel Category Changes - 2010
 

Told during telephone booking process that Courtyard Key West Florida had moved from Cat 5 to Cat 6 (after agent said free award would work before checking it out) causing 40 minute wait on my cell phone and invalidating use of my wife's Premier Marriott Visa's free award good for only Cat 1-5 expiring April 13, 2010:eek: Had to accept Fairfield Inn instead, a Cat 5. Most annoying as we had guests for dinner and further delay came after an extremely long wait to reach an agent in the first place!

My understanding as well. I stand to be corrected, but I was under the impression that it has mainly (but not entirely) to do with reward night demand.

This closely matches Socrate's assertion from this post.

I should have said primarily. (Though even that may not be as close to correct as I thought it was).

I thought it was much more heavily influenced by price than reward demand, but if it is just a ratio, then it is influenced by occupancy rates, room prices, reward demand, and current reward category. Room rate is probably the largest driver of the other items here, but I didn't know that was how it was done.

I believe Starwood's categories are calculated using the Average Daily Rate only, but now I'm less sure of that.

I posted a list on the Loyalty Traveler blog of current Marriott Rewards hotel category distribution and category changes from March 8, 2010.

I plan to use the Marriott category changes on my blog this week to highlight some hotel loyalty program comparisons between Marriott, Hilton, Starwood, Hyatt, and IHG and point out some industry trends.

Bottom line is Marriott still maintains one of the best hotel category distributions among the loyalty programs with the majority of hotels in the lower categories of 1, 2, and 3 and a large proportion of upper upscale hotels in category 5 and 6 with category 7 and 8 limited to select highly popular hotels and locations.

http://boardingarea.com/blogs/loyalt...hotel-changes/