So this issue was somewhat debated with varied responses in a post about a starwood amex card and then using those points for marriot. So i have lots of nights with marriot, and lots of points with starwood. looks like it is an even trade back and forth between the two programs currently. So i transfer 500k starpoints to marriot, which gives me 1.5 million points with marriot. Now have enough points and nights for lifetime Gold ASSUMING transfer points count towards lifetime points, that is the question? then as a bonus, you can transfer the MR back to starwood, no harm no foul?

thanks

At this time, transfers back and forth between SPG and Rewards do not affect lifetime counts with either program in one way or the other.

Transfers are just a way to move points to the program where you might want more points for a reward. For example, I'm planning vacations to Seattle and Sydney. In both cities, I like the location of a Marriott better than the Starwood-legacy properties. So I moved points from SPG to Rewards so I would have enough Rewards points.

Marriott has not yet announced the lifetime status rules for the combined program, coming in 2018. Chances are that SPG points (multiplied by 3) and Rewards points will be combined to calculate lifetime points, but that's only a guess so far. There will probably be a lot of newly minted lifetime status members in 2018, for those who split their stays between Marriott brands and Starwood brands.

Then again, it's also possible that the levels for lifetime Rewards status will increase in 2018 -- although that would make a lot of members angry, which is not what Marriott wants for a smooth merger of the programs.

Given Marriott just a few years ago reduced their LT requirements, it will be interesting to see how LT statuses are affected by this acquisition/merger.

One thing I could see them doing is throwing back in some type of minimum number of years at Plat to achieve Plat LT status. Currently Marriott doesn't have any requirements around ever being Plat before getting Plat LT status. They used to require at least getting that status once. SPG requires 10 years of Plat status (plus other requirements of course) before achieving LT Plat status.

I guess the question really is what is Marriott using LT status to do? I really think they originally added it in years and years ago not as any "carrot" for getting people to stay more at their hotels, but more as a "reward" for many years of consistent patronage. Then when other hotel programs started adding their own LT statuses, I'm wondering if their thinking changed to more of the "carrot" approach. But how they want to use LT status will probably affect how LT status will look in the new combined program.

There was an interesting blog I read a few days ago by someone attending a loyalty conference. One the speakers was from MR who said that the overlap between participants in the programs was 11%. Marriott originally thought it would be 16%. If that is indeed true, the number of participants reaching LT status when the programs are combined may not be that great.

After reading the article, I did wonder how they calculated the overlap-- was it by the number of linked accounts or by cross-listing account data (I've not linked my accounts yet). I also wonder how many MR participants (like me) are actively churning the SPG AMEX cards this year.

Here is the article if you're interested:

http://blog.wandr.me/2017/02/reducin...wards-program/