Questioning Loyalty to Marriott anymore
 

FWIW I spend most of my 100 nights per year in Florida and the Caribbean. I am well over 1K nights lifetime and close to 2 Mil MR points. Platinum for about 10 straight years. There are so few hotels anymore that offer any benefits or lounges in florida that offer anything is hard to be loyal. With the Stanton (SOBE) closing I am not sure there is any hotel offering a lounge anymore on the beach. Even non resort hotels like the casa monica aren't offering breakfast anymore. They offer a beach club 10-15 miles away as the reason. Go to Orlando and find a place with a lounge?!? I understand Marriott is a Business hotel. Treat us on vacation with our families as if we were on the company dime. If not lose our loyalty.

Casa Monica Resort & Spa, Autograph Collection no longer provides breakfast in the hotel restaurant?

Casa Monica shows as a hotel ("Our Hotel"), not as a resort, on Marriott.com, even though the property has "Resort" in its name.

Breakfast isn't the be-all and end-all of a hotel loyalty program, but I enjoy and appreciate a good breakfast as an elite benefit.

Those of us with Rewards Platinum status and an account linked to SPG now have breakfast at properties in the SPG program, including resorts.

It will be interesting to see how the combined program deals with elite breakfasts.

I don't mean to derail this thread, but I'm continually shocked at the number of people who judge the quality of a hotel (or a rewards program) by their complementary breakfast. Personally, I would put that item somewhere around #98 in the list of most important items to me, but the topic keeps coming up. Seriously, if I'm already spending a few hundred dollars a night for a room, having to spend another $50 for breakfast (or $100 for that matter) isn't going to bother me in the slightest. I'd much rather have a high-quality experience, great guest service, upscale furnishings, etc. and pay for breakfast than to stay in a mediocre hotel where (yay!) breakfast is free. Call me crazy...

I will admit to not being on the up and up on FT anymore, so would you mind explaining this?

If your room is $250, $50 is 25% of that which isn't insignificant. If I'm staying somewhere for a week I'm probably not going to eat the complimentary breakfast every day, but eating it a few days will certainly help the budget.

Not to mention at many of the properties OP is referring to, you have the privilege of paying a resort fee in order to not get the elite breakfast benefit.

Trying out the SPG resorts is a good idea though.

You might want to doublecheck your math. :)

I'm similar to the OP, that I value a hotels lounge and breakfast pretty highly, and 90% of the time I'm booking a family stay, I won't consider one that doesn't provide this.

Breakfast x 2-3 people, plus evening drinks/food, can easily cost $100-150 per day. Adds up pretty quickly.

Sorry, 20% :-). I think I was thinking of $200 in my head.

As a Platinum member via SPG, I recently tried out Marriott via the Zurich Marriott and was appalled by the apathetic customer service experienced that apparently tolerates violent attacks on hotel guests.

On the morning of check-out, after a final leisurely stroll across the river to the park near the hotel, I returned to the hotel and visited the executive lounge to get a bottle of water from the fridge to drink in the room before finishing packing and then checking out. Whilst I was patiently queueing in line in front of the fridge, as soon as I got to the front and as I was reaching down to grab a bottle, suddenly from my right side a male guest violently shoved me out of the way.

This was a violent aggressive assault which knocked me off balance and also caused me to fall over. Even worse was the fact I was holding a glass bottle in my hand at the time and this could have easily been dropped or gone flying and shattered everywhere. Children were in the lounge so this could have been quite dangerous.

Shocked by the fact I had just been assaulted, I asked the man for an apology but instead the only reply I received was "**** you".

Concerned for my safety and not wanting to be violently assaulted again, I decided to leave the lounge. Meanwhile, the male lounge attendant made eye contact with me but did and said nothing. Eventually I said that he should bring the violent man into line and maintain standards of behaviour. No reply was forthcoming, although the violent thug started shouting foul language again.

Finally I noticed that about 25mins later, as I loaded my suitcase into the car to take me to the airport, the violent criminal was smoking in front of the hotel. He again made a violent gesture towards me and mouthed the words "**** you".

I took a photo of the criminal smoking in front of the hotel and send it, together with an email setting out the full facts, to the hotel and seeking their help to investigate and for contact details to file a police report. Initially I did this via the Marriott app (the concierge always answered instantly with other requests - this time I simply asked for the GM or hotel's email address). I was asked why I needed the email address and I then said I had been assaulted and needed to send a photo of the attacker (a fellow guest who was therefore a danger to everyone in the hotel) but the message was ignored and the concierge then left the conversation - I have the phone screenshots to prove this.

Through Google I found the GM's email so sent everything in. Got the out of office reply but it contained his deputy's email for urgent matters so I sent it to her.

Silence for 48 hours and all I received was a vague assurance that this was an isolated incident and a thank you for reporting the matter to them. No attempt at service recovery, and my questions about identifying the culprit, or to send me the contact details for the local police, among others, were all completely ignored. Rather miffed I then emailed Marriott HQ. They bounced the matter back to the hotel who told me that they did not get involved in "disputes" between guests, ignoring the fact that there was never any dispute and I was simply the victim of a random attack. Again, another empty apology and an offer to give me the police contact details if I wanted them (despite my first email clearly asking for them). Still no service recovery and just a pathetically expressed hope I would stay with them again and give them a second chance.

By the way, the animal smoking in the photo below is the thug who attacked me. If you see him, beware he may randomly attack you.

file a criminal complaint with the Zurich "fuzz" against the in-named individual and the hotel for assault, battery and conspiracy, jointly and severally

I do believe the Hollywood Beach Marriott still has a lounge (and elites do get access.)

For me, when traveling with the family, I'm usually not as enamored with stuffing 4 or 5 of us in a single hotel room even if it is on the beach. I normally try to find an MVCI property instead and get a big suite with a full kitchen. I've stayed at the MVCI properties in Ft. Lauderdale, Aruba, St. Kitts, Hawaii (more than once), etc. All of them were on the beach (OK, the Beachplace Towers is across A1A, but as close as it could get to the beach there. :) ) I've not tried it yet, but the Marriott Key West Beachside hotel is really an MVCI that Marriott turned into a hotel instead. So lots of 1, 2, 3 bedroom suites for awards.) In all of those, we tend to buy some breakfast foods and cook breakfast in the room every morning. Much cheaper and is as tasty as we want it to be. :D

My family is smaller, just three of us. Mom, Dad, and daughter still prefer a MVCI property like you do for the extra space and we don't mind making our own breakfast when we have full cooking facilities. Sometimes we also cook in for dinner. MVCI is a format that works well for us when we can get it.

On the other hand, there are urban areas (though MVCI's are starting to pop up in them with Pulse; however, Pulse is more like a standard hotel room) and rural areas where MVCI doesn't have coverage. In those areas we definitely prefer a property with complimentary breakfast as much for the convenience factor as the cost savings. RI's, FI's, and SHS's fit the bill nicely for these areas. They also tend to have rooms with two queen beds available versus most full service properties that are still either one king bed or two double beds. If a CY is at the right price point (cash or points) and a good location we will still stay at them even though they don't provide free breakfast.

Bottom line, complimentary breakfast is not an absolute deal breaker for us on family stays but it is a very significant factor after location, bed format and room/suite size. Each to their own....

--Jon

P.S. I need to also start looking at SPG properties and see how that enhances/changes the equation. My SPG account has been dormant for so long, I can't automatically link it to my MR account online and I have been too lazy to call in to get it fixed.

P.P.S. For Hawaii and other resort areas when there wasn't a MVCI property available, we do stay in the full service resorts.. We either make our own breakfast in the room (cereal, milk, coffee, tea, fruit, etc.) or go to the Starbucks or other onsite coffee shop as a treat. It is very rare we want to spend the time nor the money for a full sit down high end breakfast (buffer or off menu). Time is as big or a bigger factor as the money. We want to get up and started on the days adventures frequently exploring off property. We do enjoy the rest of the resort facilities (typically nice pools, beach access, and nice walkways to shopping/dining areas).

The SPG Plat breakfast benefit is breakfast for two - if you have a guest registered in the room for which you are staying and paying. It is so often asked in the SPG forum about more family members and more rooms that I'll provide the info here preemptively. :D

SPG would go a long way toward resolving the breakfast problem for you - so long as there is an SPG program.

Bingo. Very common pattern to earn on business travel, and burn for vacations, and Marriott's dual policy of (i) not waiving resort fees on awards, and (ii) not providing breakfast at resorts, is a real sore point for many. Particularly since at many resorts, you're essentially captive for breakfast.

It will be interesting to see how they handle the breakfast issue when the programs merge. IMO this is the single weakest part of the entire MR program.

And that's the different strokes for different folks thing. To me the weakest part is not receiving points for ALL spend at ALL brands. It's ridiculous that some brands (including pricey RCs) only earn points on rooms & not incidental spend, especially when those brands have venues (restaurants, bars, bistros & in the case of RCs spas) where spend is spent/charged to the room. I get the 3rd party thing such as some parking, but for spend that isn't 3rd party/is being spent at the property, it should earn points. But that's a discussion for a different thread since this one is primarily focused on breakfast.

Cheers.

I get your point that breakfast is not important to you. It's not a make-or-break issue to me, either, but I'd still rank it at #3 or 4 on the list of elite benefits and 6-7th among hotel features overall. I definitely appreciate when elite complimentary breakfast is offered and done well, but it's rarely my deciding factor for choosing one property over another.

I recognize, though, that others may give it more weight, and why. For one, some people care more about eating breakfast than I do. I can skip it, or eat a protein bar I tucked in my bag, or grab something quick and light while I'm out and about. Two, I don't have a big family. If I did then even a modest breakfast offering could be a savings of $50/day versus having to go out somewhere for it, and at least a $75/day savings versus paying hotel restaurant prices for it.