Marriott | Golden Rule
"We live by the#GoldenRule
Treating others like we’d like to be treated.
It has always been our guiding principle."

With friends like Marriott, who needs enemies?

Plus the full migration of the SPG properties to the new platform.

Right now, the desktop platforms are a MESS, not just for the account information, but the properties available. Apps were reportedly slightly better but still full of errors.

It is very clear that Marriott IT is NOT prepared for the final merger despite they pushed the date from Aug 1st to Aug 18th weekend. Something is behind the push to get the final merger done much earlier than what it had announced late last year on their investors meetings, that the 3 programs would remain separate thru 2018 and the final merger would happen early 2019 (already 9 months behind schedule).

Unfortunately, its IT teams simply are not up to the task, or Marriott is too cheap to beef up the IT resources to handle the crunch, coupled with the malicious intent to defraud a good number of customers who redeemed the Cat 6, 8 and Tier 1-3 - so now we have this humongous mess with no end in sight - not just related to the TP but actually affects bookings with both points and cash based on how the websites behave.

Here is even the log in issues affecting those of us using the same email address for both sites in the past. On Sunday when the supervisor told me to log out and log back in to see my point balance, when I logged back in I found myself on Marriott site but the Activity screen was clearly for SPG as I saw 2 point-conversion entries to convert the AMEX SPG earnings to 3x "points". After multiple attempts we decided to use Incognito to see if I could return to Marriott site. That worked and I saw what the supervisor had done, NOT in the Activity page, but on the side at the right.

Since weekend I can not log in my SPG account in regular browsing because now it would not recognize the existing SPG password which is different from the Marriott's. Or the site threw me to Marriott site but displayed the SPG logo - the tell-tall is the point balances as I have vastly different point balances in different programs. I purposely keep a good chunk of SPG pts in SPG account as I suspect we would not be able to book any SPG property for an extended time until the migration is stable. I dont want to be locked out from SPG properties should I need them as who knows when the migration would be completed. The memories of UA/CO merger and the US/AA merger are bad enough that I would not take chance.

As of now, the only way I can log in SPG now is thru Incognito window, but someone who had the same issue told me he could not even with incognito. Another person told me he could not log in EITHER his Marriott or SPG account. Worse, SPG site no longer recognize the existing SPG account numbers. But if you use the assigned new number, either it threw you to Marriott site or not recognizes your log in credential at all.
The common element is we have the same email address for both sites.

Apparently Marriott IT has never thought about this...

Marriott is LOSING many revenue bookings from many fronts - in particular the SPG elites and the road warriors who can not even see their upcoming trips in their accounts - why take the risk when there are Hiltons and may be Hyatts?

The poor decisions would come back to haunt Marriott. Would be interesting time when it comes to shareholders / investors meeting year end.

I was able to log into both the Marriott site and the SPG site. While on the Marriott site, I combined both accounts (which had been linked) under the Marriott account number. I then checked the history and found the Marriott transactions still showing, but a note that the SPG transactions would take a while to migrate.

When I then tried to log into the SPG site, I got no data but a note that the account had been merged.

The combined number of points in the combined/merged account seems about right, but I'm not sure the credit for my last SPG AMEX account statement has been included; I'll know better when the account shows the SPG transaction history as well.

The certificates have been very frustrating on multiple levels.

I appreciate the info that people are providing, but please be patient.

The difficulties of merging the systems shouldn't be underestimated. I think they are doing a good job here.

I encourage Marriott to be a little more generous with the policies and refunds given for certificate holders. It's part of those one-time merger costs.

I made a reservation with a certificate in good-faith for a property months out, and due to unforeseen circumstances need to switch dates. Wish they would let me, but the property went up in category (or the certificate went down).

AMEX SPG pts transferred to SPG before July 29th or 30th have no issue as my husband's AMEX SPG statement was on Jul 26th and I was worried about it. He got all the points correctly. I promptly initiate a request to move all his balance to my account - that took the full 5 business days. His SPG account now has 7 pts, and we will let it die of natural death.

I dont want to combine my accounts just yet because as of now you can only book reward stay at SPG properties on SPG site. I dont want to lock myself out from this avenue. I also dont want my Marriott account has boatload of balance because I want to use the award booking without pts feature, so I can eventually use the crappy TP certs once and when they are finally become usable. If I have pts in Marriott account, even just over 50% to cover the reward booking, my experience has been, Marriott site would just TAKE the points. This eliminates my options.

When I could not log in my SPG account on Sunday when it was reported sites were up and running, I had a moment of panic because of my SPG balance. lol.

Correct.
Personally I only use the web but your experiences match with all my friends'.

It takes several hours to overnight before the web updated.
There are some areas on the web you could see the latest info - for example if pts refunded to your account, the home page would not show, but the side bar on the right side (new design on the web) would show.
Activity page would not show the real time line entries when it is in the defraud 5 items per page mode, changed it to ALL you will see it. At least that is the trick in the past.

Also for those who use mobile apps you need to download the new apps in order to see your account info displayed correctly.

My best guess for the new codes.

Cat 1-4 QP83 (Confirmed)

Cat 5 QP91 (Guess)

Cat 6 QP99 (Confirmed)

Cat 7 QP107 (Guess)

Cat 8 QP115 (Guess)

I am treating Happy's award QP80 75K as a special case and using QP83 45K which matches to the old Cat1-5 45K as the reference point.

This makes sense now. Thanks HAPPY for following up with this :)

*sigh* People are emotional. I haven't read every bad experience or permutation of ways a member can possibly get screwed on a Travel Package. I know when two massive programs merge categories, FT is quickly going to find the sweet spots as well as the places where people got hosed the worst, and the people who got hosed are going to post and write emails about it.

Lest we forget, the floater Travel Package certs are a tiny part of this merger, yet one that has a high degree of programming complexity to it. It's quite likely that the software teams spent months planning for the "big" things and kept kicking TP-related user stories down the backlog as they resolved other bugs in testing. At the end of the day, this is all less important than merging our accounts, sorting out the new status tiers, converting all the points, getting Starwood hotels up and running in Marriott Rewards, etc. Travel nerds like us represent a tiny percentage of the base - we think the TP's are super-critical but 99% of the membership does not. (Hey, it's their loss. :))

So my comment about intent is this: Marriott wanted (and still wants) to create a program that both SPG and Marriott fans think is fair. It isn't going to be perfect, but they clearly tried to get the big things right. If all of the SPG Ambassador members end up at Hyatt, that's a loss. If all of the Marriott members end up at Hilton, that's a loss. So they aimed for something that would keep both in the fold, and have at least designed something that should accomplish that. I do not believe Marriott ever intended to defraud Travel Package users - there simply isn't any upside for them to do that. Intentionally driving away a high-volume member over 30,000 points?

The reality is that the execution has been horrible. IT operations has been a hot mess and call center operations has been a raging tire fire. It's clear that Marriott didn't have any good answers on how to handle the floater certs and has improvised with the solution a lot of us hypothesized here, but got to a decision too late and hasn't communicated it well through the organization. It has a manual step to it (if you want a half-category refund), which is annoying. But I think "intent to defraud" is a little strong. It's more like "didn't plan this individual detail very well, and now it's messy."

I don't like defraud either. It's a loaded word.

But I do think they intended to do something that they knew would make people unhappy. They were stuck -- for example, for OC6 certificates (30,000 points), they either had to devalue them to NC4 (25,000 points) or increase the value to NC5 (35,000 points). They chose to use the peak season excuse to do the former when the latter was the customer-friendly things to do. Having made that decision, they then made the even worse and clearly intentional decision not to publish the conversion chart in advance. And I've yet to seen anyone from Marriott defend that decision. Why not let everyone know what was going to happen?

The only explanation that I can see so far is to maximize breakage. Unable to use these things where they want, some people will just let them expire. Others will turn them in for the low 45,000 points + 30,000 per category turn-in value. I believe Marriott much rather have a OC6 certificate holder turn that in for 75,000 points (3 nights at a NC4) than to have the certificate redeemed for 7 nights at an NC4 hotel.

I'm not going to call it fraud right now. I do call it terrible marketing and customer relations.

And don't get me started on the way they've communicated the whole thing. But it's Thursday and nothing official has been posted since the useless information on Monday.

Excuse my ignorance here but is any certificate that was not attached to a hotel (or once attached and then removed) considered a "floater" or is that a term used for a specific subset of unattached TPs? purchased a couple right near the August 18th deadline and did not attach them to anything. Are those in danger of being refunded unilaterally?

It is the INTENT that counts

The INTENT has NEVER been putting customers benefits ahead. I dont think anybody can deny this.

The INTENT has always been to generate the highest breakage, or in other words, to reduce the highest possible amount of liability carried on the books with the least possible cost (actual hotel stays).

That is why they did not communicate and deliberately not only kept everyone in the dark, but INTENTIONALLY sent out trial balloons with totally misleading "information". If you care to look back, MOST of the "information" the SPG Lurker was told to tell us, has NOT come true whatsoever. In fact in many cases the opposites happened when people are urged to do things on the other directions,

Just look at how the system is designed for those who have attached their certs to the properties as they are being to do so would be for the best of their benefits - when they tried to make any change to the bookings even though the hotels have not changed categories - Certs were automatically canceled by the system with point refund - it takes a Hercules effort to get your cert back so you would not become one of the "breakage" that Marriott has been factored in.

It is not bad marketing strategy, nor customer relation issue. It is a well-thought out, carefully planned strategy. A strategy being formulared based on the data it has collected from the customer reaction to the trial balloons set off since April that led to the final days, fully intended for only one thing - to benefit the corporation, using an extremely questionable handling of the customers.

Remember, Marriott initially had NO intention to refund the 30K overcharged points, and using the bogus Peak point pricing to justify the action.

Here is a simple analogy
If you have bought a merchandise for future delivery, paid the price sight unseen. You went ahead to pay it even a lesser merchandise would cost less, but in good faith you expected to receive a better product because you paid more. Now the merchant informs you, "Oh, the merchandise has arrived, you can pick it up in a month's time. Though here is a small thing - the merchandise is not what you ordered, just slightly different (cheaper), but it would function the same nonetheless. We would not provide a refund for the price difference, because the merchandise has the same function anyway. (we will pocket the extra payment, sucker.)"

Ask anybody who is put in the above situation, Would he accept the above explanation AND the lower quality merchandise that he initially did not want, and opted to pay a higher price for a better merchandise?

If the above is not a fraud I dont know how to describe the scenario.

That is exactly what has happened here, even though it is committed by a big corporation, not a store you paid for your merchandise and only be told lesser value merchandise would be delivered, but you would not get the refund of the price difference - the essence is the same.

Any unattached certificate is a Floater.

Despite the ridiculous language in the emails sent out as late as Aug 22nd, claiming Marriott would not honor those unattached certs, said scenario would not happen, unless further screw up from Marriott.

This is getting more and more ridiculous. Can't believe a company this big handles things so poorly with a lot of confusion and mess and soooo slowwwly.

International Call Centers are seemingly not provided the conversion tables from legacy certs to the new certs.

Just finished a call with the UK number. (long long hold and very bad connection on the robot prompts with the only clear part was the cheerful proclamation of now we are finally one program ... Though once a human picked up the connection became much better - so there is also phone network issues apparently caused by inserting the pieces of the latest program merger announcements.).

Rep was giving me the same answer as the Asian rep last night - their system does not have the conversion table. The UK rep further described that their system pulls up a BLACK screen on the conversion. Nothing can be achieved as far as conversion goes. They are able to order you a new package on the new rate though...

hello,

just wanted to share my experience, today after 2 hours on the phone and with help of supervisor's supervisor they were able to attach my old Cat 1-5 certificate to the new cat 5 hotel Marriott Pinnacle downtown vancouver though they charged me 56K more points for 7 nights!!! was so exhausted that it wasn't worth to ask them why the additional 56K

what i can't understand is why i cannot book hotels that may be showing under revenue availability but not under points. I thought marriott was following SPG rules if its available you can get on points

Was trying to get Westin Bayshore Vancouver from 31st to the 7th

This can't be real life. Is there really any math that could support this being a good move for Marriott? I understand why they would pursue breakage, but they've burned through goodwill like wildfire over the last two weeks. It's hard to believe this hasn't resulted in lost bookings. Maybe I'm overestimating the number of customers affected by this, but I can't only hope that they're having so many problems with the website merge that fixing this situation has been put down on the list. As a small business owner, this lack of communication is mind-boggling!

Lol
 

Is it just me or the 30k refund that MR promised for cat 6 and cat 8 is questionable? I got the standard email too. How come all the bloggers have gone silent on this??

Honestly, if you ignore the wasted time, that's not a bad trade. Old Cat 1-5 = New Cat 1-4. Cat 5 cost 10K more per night than Cat1-4. New Cat 1-4 + 6*10K = new Cat 5. I believe you saved 4K in points.

Except that once you cancel the reservation, what will you get back? The old cat 1-5 cert + 56K points or just the cert or nothing???

It might be a coincidence, but the Amex Starwood Luxury card came out today. Some cardholders who are eligible for the bonus today won't be on 8/26.

I would be surprised if the old Cat 1-5 could be attached to a new Cat 5 hotel unless it converted to a NC 1-4, otherwise the trade only makes sense if you are almost certain to utilize you reservation.

There's 85 million members in the combined program. Of those, how many do you think are dealing with this travel package issue, maybe a few hundred? To claim this is costing Marriott tons of business and good will is absolutely ludicrous. The only business they might lost is that of a very select group of savvy travelers who are focused on maximizing every single penny, I'm sure Marriott is not losing any sleep.

I too have an unattached Cat 8 cert that I would like to refund at some point. I am certain I will be able to do that eventually. I am also certain it is nowhere near their top priority right now.

One guess would be that the SPG AmEx luxury card has hit the shelves, and they don't want to hold down the number of people who would like to get the card through their affiliate links. Saying bad things about Marriott might not be good business right now.

https://runningwithmiles.boardingare...044.1523022008
https://frequentmiler.boardingarea.c...044.1523022008
https://onemileatatime.com/spg-luxury-card-application/
https://runningwithmiles.boardingare...044.1523022008

This one says he's passing on the card, but it still contains an affiliate link.

https://milestomemories.boardingarea...044.1523022008

LoyaltyLobby is the only one that's on this story at all. While this story is on a different topic, https://loyaltylobby.com/2018/08/23/...eated-me-john/, it's heavily critical of Marriott.

My saga continues...

I attempted to get my TP cert issue fixed again today in a 2+ hour call with Marriott and I am pretty close now.

Previously on "My TP Cert Saga":

1) Agent cancelled my OC8 cert by mistake not realizing that it would be auto-cancelled when the attached res was cancelled.
2) Got to a supervisor who re-ordered me a new cert but he ordered a NC6 (QP99) instead of a NC5 and the NC6 cost me an extra 30k points which would have been great if I could use an NC6 but only need an NC5 so I would rather have NC5 plus 30k refund.

Today:

1) Agent tried to help fix. She could not fix it herself but rather than transfer me to her "team", as she put it, who could fix the problem she put me on hold and contacted her team herself and asked them to fix it which ended up taking a bit longer and she botched the first attempt by giving my a NC1-4 (QP84) with a 105k points value. Oops, 1 hour wasted.

2) I caught her mistake and asked her to fix. I wanted a NC5 for 105k points but she did not have that in her information. She evidently was given a chart from the "team" that only showed the high side partial package redemption of a NC5 for 135k points so I told her to book that because I needed the NC5 and I would request a 30k refund through the web link posted earlier. Ended up with NC5 cert for 135k (QP88). Another hour gone but I am getting closer to being whole. Just missing the 30k points refund.

Here is the information on the packages from today:

You do not want this one:

Reward Details

• Description: PARTIAL PACKAGE - 7 NIGHTS CATEGORY 1-4
• Reward code: QP84
• Valid through: Friday, August 23, 2019
• Total points redeemed: 105,000
• Confirmed on: Thursday, August 23, 2018

Description:Total points redeemed:PARTIAL PACKAGE - 7 NIGHTS CATEGORY 1-4
Reward certificate number: XXXXnnnn
Total points redeemed:105,000

And, you probably don't want this one either as it is 30k too expensive:

Reward Details

• Description: PARTIAL PACKAGE - 7 NIGHTS CATEGORY 5
• Reward code: QP88
• Valid through: Friday, August 23, 2019
• Total points redeemed: 135,000
• Confirmed on: Thursday, August 23, 2018

Description:Total points redeemed:PARTIAL PACKAGE - 7 NIGHTS CATEGORY 5
Reward certificate number: XXXXnnnn
Total points redeemed:135,000

Looks like the mile portion of the TP is about the same but the night certificates are more expensive.

Now we have yet another Code for the NC1-4
The 45K straight conversion from a OC5 is QP83.
The 75K straight conversion from a OC6 is QP80.

Now we see a NC1-4 QP84 with 105K!

Did they cancel the QP84 and refund the 105K then rebook the QP88 NC1-5? i.e, the NC CAN BE CANCELED and the points refund is based on the attached value?

The sequence of number is totally confusing because it is not from low to high, based on the different value of the points attached to it?

Why the table becomes SO COMPLICATED. No wonder the reps are making mistakes after mistakes.

What you should have been given is a Cat 5 with 105K value, that is how I believe anyway. So it is the 30K refund you are owed.

Someone has better understanding on how these codes indicate, please help!

This is now beyond ridiculous that we have to feed the agents with codes to get things done correctly.

Many, incl myself, is CHEATED on the Platinum Challenge as well.

I honestly cannot believe there are still people defending Marriott's tactics. It has been lies after lies after lies, on every front, not just the TP fiasco.

Fairly sure those were cat 7 in the past, so you're coming out ahead. Take it and run

I think it's actually singular -- one person.

Actually 56K is cheaper than it would have been because your old cert was a Cat 1-5, which is only valued at 45k. The new Cat 5 hotel is at 135K. So the difference to pay up is 135K - 45K = 90K. I know this because a supervisor on Sunday told me my Old Cat 6 converted to a new Cat 1-4 has 75K value, and if I want to book a new Cat 5 hotel, the difference to pay up is 135K - 75K = 60K to pay.

Consider you have gotten a "bargain" with 56K pay up versus the 90K that should have been!

In other words, the conversion tables and mechanism are SO NEEDLESSLY COMPLICATED that even the supervisor's supervisor could not figure it out correctly, but at least this time the screw up is in your favor - a very rare happening!

He saved far more than that. I think your math is off.

New Cat 5 partial is at 135K. Hence the supervisor kept telling me my converted NC 1-4 has 75K value so if I upgrade to NC5, I "only" need to pay 60K extra. You can also see the email confirmation information posted by Skimthetrees post on the follow up of his saga. Skimthetrees received the Partial Cat 5 with 135K cost.

The poster has an OC1-5, NOT an OC6 like mine, so I assume the value is only 45K. He would have to pay 90K to get up to 135K! He now only is charged 56K, he has saved 34K in the process!

That almost seems like they have coding for a variety of different packages based on several different transition plans.

The percentage of the 85 million members that can amass enough points to redeem travel packages, in many cases multiple packages, is indeed very small. But the other side of the coin is, just HOW these folks can amass such sizable points to begin with?

Not just these customers have stayed at Marriott much more often than those who hardly have enough points in their accounts to redeem even a single free night at 25K, they also spend a whole lot more on their cobranded cards considering the pts earned from stay are not great. So the other ways of earning the points, primarily credit card spend become an important factor.

Dont forget these days, credit cards are hugely profitable business both for the banks and for the sponsors. Marriott share the spoils from Chase on the credit card spends.

That is why one can "earn" eligible night via spend X amount on the co-branded card, and the new AMEX card that comes out today definitely encourage the high spenders.

That is why the cobrand cards are major profit centers for the banks and the cobrands themselves. Use the rewards as the carrots so you would spend to earn enough points for that carrots - now it turns out the carrots are either not there or are rotten, imagine people's reaction and how their spend pattern would be affected... The impact would not be trivial. All you need is to read some 10Q or 10K to see the $ involved and the profits that generated.

Agree. He got a bargain for just paying extra 56K. It should have been 90K because his OC 1-5 only worth 45K when the NC5 is at 135K. That is exactly what Skimthetrees is charged in his attempts to get back his cert that was automatically canceled by the system when only the underlying reservation should be canceled. He eventually got the NC5 he needed, and the details he posted, shows a Partial NC5 is at 135K.

Alright, I'd like to share my final story to others. Thanks to all who shared the code above.

Before 8/18, I upgraded my OC1-5 to OC8, paid 90k hoping to get a better mapping, but I lost the gambling as you all know. My original goal is to cash the OC8 back to 135k, but later I thought may better go with the new NC1-4 and 90k back, which makes more sense to me. I've tried calling few times but as soon as I mentioned "Travel Package" the agent just said no, or we can't touch it until next month, etc those kind of nonsense.

Based on recent posts, I decided to roll the dice again using a slightly different way:
- Platinum elite line, waited 15 mins (not too bad), got a rep whose voice is not sleepy (Good sign). She said this is Marriott Reservation. I asked her "I have a question about the certificate, if you can help or need to transfer me to the rewards team"
- She said she can help.
- I specifically said "I have a P950 Partial Pkg Cat 8, I'd like to cancel it and re-order a new Partial Pkg Cat 1-4. Code is QP83"
- She then looked up system, asked me again about the spelling of QP83. I confirmed twice, and mention this is should only costs 45k points as it is a lower cat cert.
- She asked me to hold on one sec. Not very long silence, assuming she is just pulling the code to verify. Then she confirmed me that I'd like to cancel the P950 to get 135k back, I said yes.
- I have the mobile app, refreshed in real time, and boom, 135k points showed up.
- She asked if I'd like to proceed ordering the new QP83 - Partial Pkg Cat 1-4 using 45k points. I said yes.
- Refreshed app again, 45k paid, got the shiny new cert back.

Hope this helps someone. I believe the keys are:
1) Find a helpful agent. Most of the time you can tell it right away on the first sentence he/she speaks.
2) Mention the Code, which is the key than anything like "Travel Package Cert". Agents' goal is to help customer, if you can just give the clear item they need to locate in the system, then it will be much better off than just explaining your situation and let them to guess what they need to do. Especially to the post-merger Marriott.

Tonywush went from an old Cat 8 to a new Cat 1-4 and got back 90K. In his example, the cost of an old Cat 1-5 would need to equal the cost of a new Cat 1-4 for the differential to be 90K. Old Cat 8 = Old Cat 1-5 + 90K = New Cat 1-4 + 90K. Alternatively, he was refunded 135K for the old Cat 8 and charged 45K for the new Cat 1-4. - old Cat 8 + new Cat 1-4 = -135K +45K = -90K.

I used the difference in price between a new Cat 5 and a new Cat 1-4 which is 10K/night or 60K for 7 nights. I knew that you were charged more than that.

Yes, they cancelled the QP99 (points refunded) and issued the new QP84 then cancelled the QP84 (points refunded) and issued the new QP88. So, yes, it has been proven multiple times to me that they can cancel one of the QP packages (partial package NC certs based on the old pre 8/18 chart?) and once cancelled the points automatically refund.

What I am not sure of is whether the actual new travel package certs, that is to say the certs obtained when purchasing a new travel package after 8/18, are refundable. It is possible the new NC certs carry a different code and are handled differently. I would be surprised if they were because that would remove the points audit trail. The way they have it set up for the QP packages is every package has a points cost that gets deducted when you purchase the package and when the package is cancelled the points value associated with the package is refunded. Every step in the process has a logged activity in my account and the reps can use that audit trail to verify that everything was done properly. If you were able to cancel and there was no points refund then in order to fix a Marriott caused problem related to that they would have to allows reps to credit points to your account to fix the problem. Once reps have the authority to issue points there is a large possibility that points will be mistakenly awarded which would be bad for Marriott which is why I feel they have setup the system the way they have. All certs have a points value and when the cert is cancelled you get the points value refunded. The only other way I could see them playing it is to not allow cancellations at all. They may decide to do that for certs issued to the new post 8/18 packages and I think there has been some posts claiming that is they way they will handle the certs from new full packages purchased post 8/18 but we have no data points on those yet. For the pre 8/18 certs converted to new partial package NC certs it is clear that they can be cancelled and when they are cancelled the points value attached to the cert will be refunded.