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.