Marriott15

I wanted to get people's opinions and thoughts on this! When all three programs merge, do you think it will cost more or less to redeem a hotel? In my opinon I think they will either stay the same or decrease. There will be a lot more brands and properties which I think could drive down category levels and amount of points. At the same time if Marriott decreased the amount of points that could lose them money!

LF72

I'd like to believe they won't -- hopefully that isn't wishful thinking. I have a few hundred thousand in both Marriott and SPG, but really haven't been using too many since I'm attempting to reach lifetime status, which I'm finding to be a difficult task in the uncertain times and unknown future of the merger.

Srisarin

joshua362

Will go only one direction, up. Less competition, a costly merger, pressure to beat the previous quarter and reduce liabilities. Heck, significant devaluation because of the latter 2 happen each year, we're just conditioned to it. Brace selves come 2019.

JBord

I'm not following the logic here. When one company owns more of the market, they have less competition. In this case, SPG has effectively been eliminated so that's less incentive for Marriott to decrease prices. I think there's virtually no chance there will be any kind of brand or category decrease.

As for my opinion, they will likely stay the same, with a few adjustments where a hotel was over or under priced. Then you'll see the normal annual changes, which tend to be mostly increases (at least for the properties I seem to care about ).

joshua362

Exactly. Over the years, every single hotel I've stayed at or considered staying at increase in Category, often for many years in a row. They'll tout about decreases in third world countries like Egypt and India and imply these are fair trade offs..

sdsearch

It all depends on whether they "recalibrate" the new program to Marriott points or SPG points (or something different than both !). If they leave Marriott points as they are, I expect most Marriott properties could remain the same, but they'd have to "re-calibrate" all the ex-SPG properties since they were on a different points system. If they adopt SPG's point system (less likely IMHO), then they'd have "re-calibrate" every Marriott property.

So if the points system stays Marriott-style, then I expect the fewest changes to properties which were always Marriott, but unpredictable changes to properties that came from SPG.

But meanwhile remember that properties get re-evaluated for points cost annually anyway, merger or no merger.

UA-NYC

With the tiers, there already are 14 Marriott categories in essence. So I could see them making it 15 to make it nice and clean (top category 75K points), allows for a natural integration of the RCs and Editions. And of course the vast majority of LCs and StRs will likely fall into those 50K+ point levels too. You'd probably see some of the better JWs inflate as well, no longer held in check by the cat 9 cap.

Absent some ludicrous ideas lacking a basis in reality, there will likely be net inflation across the board. Natural inflation + reduced competition + ongoing good US economy.

3Cforme

I didn't follow the OP's logic, either. More properties means more competition for my award points???

I'm not one who puts much credence in the 'less competition' argument. There's marginally less competition among loyalty programs with SPG eventually eliminated but Marriott's total share of rooms is still far from an oligopoly position worldwide (or U.S.-wide). I've been a Hilton Diamond, stayed with plenty of IC, used Airbnb... and can again if Marriott gets stupid.

As for re-pricing, SPG and Marriott have been repricing hotel awards at hundreds of properties each year. Marriott will continue to do that. I don't see the merger of three FF programs significantly - significantly - changing that. The ratio of 1 SPG point = 3 MR points has been established.

UA-NYC

Different industry, but seeing airlines go from 6 to 3 major network carriers (and with VX disappearing too) has led to less competition, higher prices on many less competitive routes, and the broad decimation of the loyalty programs (unless you are in the ~5% of elite flyers who are also very high spenders spending over 20 CPM).

Hotels are different (airlines don't really have VRBO or AirBnB equivalents, so more competition) but it won't be surprising if you see these programs become less generous over time.

PHLGovFlyer

IMO the template for gradual reward points cost inflation already exists given the integration of the legacy SPG categories 6 and 7. At the 3:1 ratio SPG category 6 is 60,000 to 75,000 MR points and category 7 is 90,000 to 105,000 MR points. It would be easy for the combined company to create a new awards rate structure for all properties that encompasses these high levels along with the existing Ritz tiers 3-5 ( 50k, 60k, & 70k MR points). Then properties could gradually drift upwards into these higher categories.

JBord

Fair point on the number or properties and rooms. But I'd say if you look at from the number of actual competitive rewards programs that promote customer loyalty, eliminating (merging) one of them makes for less competition.

As others have pointed out, that's what happened in the airline industry. With all the mergers, we still had seats and flights, but one less airline to earn rewards with. There has to be some correlation to decreasing benefits, whether it's a strong or weak correlation, I'd really just be guessing.

Srisarin

UA-NYC

Trolling & unnecessarily snarky point aside, comparing Air BnB to LCCs is like comparing apples to calculators. LCCs aren't direct competitors to network carriers on many/most routes, but AirBnB is in the exact same market, often next door, to both the major as well as boutique hotels.

But keep distracting from the thread conversation at hand vs. actually adding value.

Marriott15

I guess my Logic was with more focused on the SPG properties! So I always have been told and read on here category numbers are based on a few things but mainly the amount of people staying there a year! Besides the loyalists, I feel like a SPG customer will be more inclined to go stay at the regular Marriott then the Sheraton. Which will result in the Sheraton dropping down category level's. Why would someone stay in a Four Points when they can stay in a Courtyard for the same price? In my city the regular Marriott and the Aloft are the same price. The Marriott is hand's down the better property!

I should of been more clear! I think the higher end brand's will stay the same but the lower level brands like, Courtyard, Fairfield Inn, Residence Inn, Aloft, TownPlace, Four Points, and Sheraton could see decreases in their category levels!