I would argue with that. They were encoraged to attach their cetificates for maximum value. Everyone had the "ability" to attach their certificate to a reservation, up to the final hour. That program is now defunct and consequently the "value" of the certificate is moot but the 45K + 30K per category upgrade "worth" might (I say that loosely, but would establish good faith) have some bite. I still maintain a plaintiff would not be successful when it was evidenced he neglected to maximize the value of his certificate before his ability to do so expired, in hopes he would get a better outcome in "value" in the new combined program. The incentive to "gamble" was fueled by an anticipation of huge windfall.

Opting not to "attach" a certificate is a "gamble" and when the house can, and did, change the T&Cs at any time, with or without notice, it is not a gamble I was willing to take.

Since Marriott was "generous" in allowing unattached certificates to be added to reservations post Merger, bound by new T&Cs, after the dormancy, the legality of an outright cancellation with or without a return of the certificate "worth" is moot.

James

Agree on #2 .

For #1 , in my opinion it was a hotel coverage numbers game. They picked a threshold of old hotels covered in new cert, and aligned accordingly. The numbers below are for the old to new hotel coverage for n-1, n and n+1 new cats where n is the converted new cat.

Cat5 ->4 38% 99% 100%
Cat6->4, 2% 71% 99%
Cat7->5, 18% 98% 100%
Cat8->5, 0% 70% 99%
Cat9->6, 2% 76% 99%
T3->6 0% 82% 100%
T5->7 0% 21% 100%

Looks like the threshold was about 70%, but it falls off a cliff at n-1 which probably drove it more than anything. I know people are upset about paying 30k more than they had to for the same result, but the real loss was the ~30% hotel coverage. Even Cat9 people lost here. This essentially is a devaluation, which is fine, but should have been announced or avoided by mapping to a higher hotel coverage. Neither happened.

I do not work with Marriott, I work with numbers! As such, I am accustomed to separating facts from emotions.

Cheers

James

Certificate upgrade BEFORE the merger
 

Question for those who have upgraded a travel cert before the programs merged. I upgraded a cert from a cat 6 to a cat 9 on Friday, and then booked a cat 9 property all in the same transaction with customer service.

I expected the cost of the upgrade to be the difference between the cat 9 and and cat 6 package, which was 90K points. However, I ended up with 120K points deducted. My account shows the cat 6 certificate was cancelled and I was refunded 75K points, and then a new cat 9 "partial" certificate was issued for 195K. My assumption here is that the 75K is the point value of the certificate if one were to get it refunded as points instead of using it to book a cat 6 stay. I also assume this was the wrong method to upgrade the cert given I've never heard before that upgrading would cost more than the difference between the two packages.

Any thoughts from those who have experience with upgrading under the old packages?

James, you've already made this point on this board. REPEATEDLY. We get it. If you have something NEW or CONSTRUCTIVE to contribute to the discussion, awesome! Otherwise, please move on.

Constant? Bad information? Please expound? I contributed some thoughts based on numbers about a month ago. The naysayers were too emotional to comprehend. I added some thoughts since yesterday, hardly constant! I lost count, but either 5/6 or 6/7 for my estimations. Go back and check if you like, but I also said there may be a dormancy. If you want to make a claim, have facts to back it up.

James

Marriott blew it with the small mindedness that infected their previous loyalty program. They seem to think that the size and scale will mask their attempts to limit rewards in the larger program.

Marriott could've erred on the smaller side of generosity and earned a tremendous amount of good will. As it is, they've inherited a huge number of skeptics from SPG and have shown that the skepticism was well deserved.

Consumers still have choices and larger presence doesn't make their selection inevitable.

I don't see how any of this has anything to do with the ability of one party to a contract purporting to unilaterally alter and devalue the contract's agreed upon consideration.

Let's just all remember this:

"Floater certificates, including outstanding Marriott Travel Package certificates, will be cancelled and converted to equivalent points, credited to the member’s account for future redemption. <added clarity by Starwood Lurker 21Jun18>"

This entire feeding frenzy was touched off by an official Starwood/Marriott representative posting an official position of the corporation that turned out to be a complete lie.

I have no skin in this game as I bought primarily Cat 1-5 certs, but I fully understand why people are upset. I'm surprised no one has brought this up yet, but what would have happened if Marriott had mapped the certs as follows?

Cat 1-5 => Cat 1-4
Cat 6 => Cat 5
Cat 7 => Cat 5
Cat 8 => Cat 6
Cat 9 => Cat 6
Tier 1-3 => Cat 7
Tier 4-5 => Cat 7

You'd have really unhappy people at the Cat 7, 9 and Tier 4-5 levels! There is no way to win at this unless they allow people to downgrade their certs and get a refund on points.

Sorry to the people who feel ripped off, but I have a feeling that Marriott will come through for you and make things right again.

I'd hold off on doing anything hasty at this point in time. Marriott's given themselves a month to sort through the travel package mess so we can see what, if anything, they're going to do.

Since there's a lockout on travel certs for the next month, I think it's pointless to call in. The agents don't make the decisions and we'll hear about possible reimbursement if it happens.

If that is what happened (along with T5 going Cat8), there would be zero legitimate complains, because everyone was able to keep the hotel coverage they had before the merger, while gaining SPG properties and peak protection. This is precisely what they should have done - even not covering peak prices could be acceptable as people would have notice to book in advance of peak pricing going live.

The issue isn't paying more for the same hotels as someone else, it is getting significantly less hotels than what you originally purchased, without notice.

I contrast to the post immediately above, I think the point here is right. Which is why many of us have been saying that the answer was to publish the conversion chart before August 18. Had they done so, the people holding category 6, 8, and Tier 1-3 certificates could have made an informed decision to upgrade or downgrade. I'm still waiting for someone to come up with a logical reason Marriott chose not to do that. I don't think there is one other than to stick it to their customers. It's a strange way to run a loyalty program.