Srisarin

That would be dependent on the individual hotel as some may be a few dollars more to say 50% above standard rate (and I'm just thinking now of Hyatt std to club rates which I made today and that was the spread).

muggle1987

gold membership in SPG = gold membership in Marriott. so if a gold member of spg linked his/her account with marriott, could access executive lounge when stay in a marriott hotel according to the marriott gold membership policy.

getting a spg gold membership is much easier than getting a marriott gold membership. since the spg and marriott linked accounts policy is not equal (NO, a spg gold member COULD NOT access lounge in a starwood hotel unless they pay for it or have their room upgrade, NEITHER could a marriott gold member), that encourages spg members moving to marriott membership program, until marriott decides to merge these two program.

Happy

This is Very True. People know how to calculate. They get back far more in free foods / drinks from the price differentials.

The ONLY flaw is if you blindly book the Club Room without doing even a basic calculation on the Cost / Benefit equation.

Very often the cost is minimal while the benefit very big, even for just 2 persons.

Exactly. Takes no brain to figure that out.

You cannot generalize your one Hyatt room booking experience across the board.

Even at Hyatt Regency TST one time I looked at the advance purchase rate versus the flexible rate with free restaurant buffet breakfast, the price differential is only 15% (plus the 10% service fee would be on the higher rate of course). The differential is low when you get a flexible rate and a free restaurant buffet breakfast (much better than what are offered in the lounge.)

The value proposition would tell me to book the flexible rate with free restaurant buffet breakfast.

At Hyatt Osaka during our stay a couple years ago, there were many Asians there knew where to get the liquors which were hidden in the cupboard below the counter. We saw them had drink after drink after drink... In locations where alcohol consumption is expensive, you get back A Lot More Value than you pay if you are a drinker. (Can say this for the JW Marriott Marquis at Dubai.)

Ever since hotels start selling club room with lounge access, the lounge is no longer exclusive for the elites. More often than not, a good percentage of the crowds in the lounge might just be guests paying for the club rooms. This is especially true in Asia because the lounges there are much higher quality in the most parts.

It all boils down on how much is the extra cost versus how much value from lounge access you get back. While far more Marriott Golds now than before due to the SPG Gold match, it is not the main reason to contribute overcrowding in lounges.

KENNECTED

Quick question. Since you need to use a Marriott account to partake of those benefits, how exactly would lounge know how a members status was earned?

People buy Club rooms. That could also be a factor.

Could there have been some online [ie cheap travelzoo rates] or opaque special that includes club access at this property for x dates?

There are so many variable. This sound like employee �� to me.

DJ_Iceman

Not directly related, but this past week I stayed in a hotel where someone I became friends with as a front desk associate years ago is now in the management ranks behind the scenes. While we were chatting and catching up on things, she brought up how unhappy they are with "the SPG clientele" (her words).

She told me that since the merger they had seen a lot more demanding, unpleasable guests. Since this hotel actually cares about guest satisfaction, they did some research and found that the pattern was SPG platinums who had barely squeaked into that status (like, 30 nights) and then demanded presidential suite upgrades, complimentary bottles of wine upon arrival, and other unreasonable things that are simply not part of the rewards program. As part of their daily run of upcoming arrivals, they now flag guests who fit that pattern as potential troublemakers so that front desk associates know before a person even checks in that they could be unreasonable, and how to gently brush off their demands.

All that is to say that the lounge attendant at that hotel in China may very well have been briefed by management that it was "SPG golds" causing the problem, which may be neither speculation nor uninformed opinion by that lounge attendant.

Happy

1) I believe the check in desk can tell whether the guest is a comped elite or not. The lounge attendant certainly does not have such information.

2) In Asia there are so many rates available thru so many channels, people know where the bargains are. Negotiated rates are rampant in China, and those are often being sold to the public thru persons who have access to such.

3) Until the chains stop giving benefits to bookings made outside hotel / program websites, there is no way to prevent the lounge benefits being overutilized.

MSPeconomist

There's a little catch in this reasoning:

Suppose a SPG Gold links accounts and proceeds to stay in Marriott using the MR status match to MR Gold. Of course, the nights credit to Marriott.

However, at the end of the year, this hypothetical person has almost no SPG nights/stays (so no status unless they get comped status from SPG, which does not do soft landings, unlike Marriott) and won't have enough nights (50) to get Marriott Gold.

The bottom line is that at least for those who earn SPG Gold, if they use the comp to Marriott Gold to take advantage of Marriott's lounge access for MR Golds (or more generally to try Marriott), at the end of the year they will find themselves without SPG status for the next year and also without Marriott Gold status. Hence no lounge access next year.

Srisarin

Since thinking of a recent Hyatt booking was not permissible I just took a look at a few RC (since these props don't provide breakfast as a P perk) Club rates vrs non Club rates and each of them was in excess of 50% differential - now if you want to spend an extra $200+ per night for breakfast please be your own guest.

And even if the rate differential isn't that high at other brands, although you want to amortize the differential over more then 2 getting the benefits, what happens at those props that enforce the 1+1 restrictions? From other threads seems the days of feeding the entire 4+ family on the hotels dime are over !

Nazdoom

I have some of the staff from that lounge on wechat and they said it hasn't been out of the ordinary. Some internal drama and turnover though...

I'm here in Seoul CY and was advised to make a lounge reservation two days in advance in order to secure a spot on Saturdays. But that's almost 100% not related to SPG and just because the inside lounge area is tiny (and the outdoor rooftop patio portion of the lounge is repurposed on Saturdays for paid BBQ dinners)

username

That is the feeling I got - the guy I talked to was not those who were waiting on guests, he was one of those supervisory type sitting at the entrance (usually 2-3 of them and he was the lead, it seemed).

When I talked to him, I was actually more curious about the enforcement side of this - the letter I got said you can invite a maximum of 2 guests, for a fee. I really doubt they were enforcing that - did not see anyone signing or paying.

It is just pretty sad that you see the staff trying really hard to meet demand, and with a smile, but the infrastructure was just not there to support it.

This year, I am actually Ambassador with SPG and LT Platinum with Marriott. The redemption rate at this hotel is just a lot better than the Meridien 2 blocks away. I guess in a way you get what you pay for.

nacho

We had 3 nights there, one of the nights was like a madhouse.

cfischer

yes, this got to stop and we have 1 more year to go. I was in Tokyo and Beijing last week and the lounges were a mess. They had to open up additional rooms to service all the members. Overheard more than once how great *W Gold is with Marriott during these stays

username

They really brought this upon themselves by the uneven matching that created the arbitrage opportunity. I really hope for 2018, hopefully the final year before the merge, they will use a combined count and apply to both programs under the respective program's rules.

Viks

In Asia you can often do a lounge check in so…

CJKatl

While I understand your sentiments and probably agree, it's unlikely there will be any change for 2018. Many people have already qualified for that period, so changing the terms at this point seems unlikely. Delta just announced a change to its program but it won't take place until 2019, so the announcement was made before anyone starts qualifying for the year. If Marriott/SPG were to make a change I'd expect the same timeframe for the announcement.