kaizen7

a bit of sarcastic and serious ....
GHA does have limited footprint ... but then if someone frequently visit the city that GHA have hotel in that particular city then the person can easily switch to GHA
and they have quite low requirements ... 10 nights as platinums and 30 nights as black (their highest tier)

Marriott competitor is not always the huge international hotel chain
even local and smaller group of hotel can become their competitors

scubadu

I agree with you, but unfortunately that shipped sailed years ago on FT...

Panic seemed to be the preferred reaction of most FT'ers these days

Regards

joakgarp

Too much rumours and speculations going around and not so much facts. Will wait and hope Marriott will not do a Hyatt and mess up their own program.
As spg plat50 I hope Marriott won't mess up my precious platinum membership. We only stay for leasure at Spg/Marriott hotels wherever we go by ourself, friends and family. We spend lots of money on our hotels but we are keen to get something back. Spg has been the perfect balance for us and I hope we can have the same close relationship with Marriott.

rylan

Unfortunately this thread got too big too fast with speculation and little to no facts... so it quickly became a worthless read unless you have an bunch of free time on your hands to go through all 25+ pages.

washeelers747

Guess Marriott need to resort to those terrible changes to cover "bidding war" costs against a recent-bankrupted Chinese company...

I am about to finish Platinum status challenge (3 more stays next week), and thought I would keep status till Feb 2020, so I'll be pissed as heck if they decide that I am Plat50 or whatever gimmick they come without lounge access, etc after this Aug or Jan 1 2019. I hope my guts is right, but Marriott will honor current Platinum benefits for those individuals who reach status till Aug or by Dec 31, which will be valid till Feb 2020.

Wickersley

I'm based in Europe, LTP & have been PP for the past two years.

I'm must admit, the $20,000 spend requirement does give me pause for thought, even at my "normal" 120 nights a year, that's €135/night plus tax

I guess we'll find out more on the 16th

joshua362

You are being very generous, whatever coffee was left out is not replenished, same with any packaged items snacks like granola bars and pretzels. At best I see a communal bowl of peanuts and goldfish...

Mister Nice

I guess I am in the minority but I would like to see a spend threshold for earning status. However, I would like to see it as an OR proposition - qualify via nights or spend. I am high spend but low frequency and likely to jump to Hyatt where my spend would earn enough base points for top tier. Actually, just booked away from Marriott for a stay that would have normally gone to them - chose Hyatt and starting to build spend.

pWei

If they're cutting so much - why not just switch to airbnb and book full condos (giant suites with full kitchens!) for a price not much more than a regular room at a property? And instacart some groceries?

Breakfast, private lounge, your preferred drinks, your own private laundry machine even.

Marriott should keep this "new" competition in mind over just thinking about Hilton, Hyatt, IHG, et cetra.

X-ON

I disagree; what you describe is only the initial procedure; the second step should be to align all MPG accounts in accordance with any new LT tiers which presumably would be a function of the combined LT nights from MR and SPG (or any other common LT variable from the both legacy programs). These LT nights should as much as possible be converted so that can be considered as apples to apples, must obvious would be BiB nights . If you are MR/SPG LT Gold or MR/SPG LT PLT I would interpret as a your minimum LT Tier after the merge, which if some of the speculations are correct don't mean much. For instance if LT MPG Gold is equal to LT SPG Gold in terms of benefits a lot of legacy MR Gold would not be happy campers ....
If the leaked information is correct and the annual requalification for MPG Gold is 25 nights, it implies that LT MR Gold accounts (and to a lesser extent SPG Gold) accounts will be subjected to some form of immediate promotion from the initial LT MPG Gold, unless MR like to create a bunch of unhappy legacy LT MR Gold members.

stc

I will point out that Hilton has spend OR stays OR nights. If Marriott doesn't want to drive people to Hilton, adding a spend requirement would be crazy, especially since in the NE USA, Hilton seems to be undercutting Marriott on price by a lot. And I get breakfast at Hilton properties. None of this Marriott sillyness with no breakfast at Courtyard or Resorts or if we call it a Resort or if we make up some other excuse.

TravelinSperry

John caught a flyer that showed the August merger date... https://loyaltylobby.com/2018/04/10/...8/?omhide=true

So some of it isn't speculation... although all the details are not on that flyer.

CJKatl

Airbnb would not work for many business travelers like me. I check in pretty late and leave early the next morning. There is no time for Instacart, nor do I want to start fooling around in someone else's kitchen or find little surprises that would be less common with an international chain. There is staff there if something goes wrong, a quick breakfast is waiting in the morning and the iron is in the closet. I've done Airbnb a couple times for longer trips and it's really just not for me. And don't get me started on the idea of renting a room instead of an entire house/condo... I'm a hotel guy.

CJKatl

That flyer has been posted about a dozen times already in this thread. It was discussed ad nauseum yesterday, on this thread. John is a day behind this thread. His picture is the exact same screen capture that appears many times in this thread (impossible to miss) and may have been taken directly from here.

It is an Asian flyer. Asian marketing materials are often, historically, a little inaccurate and often contain some unintentional information after having been translated back and forth a few times. The overwhelming consensus when reading the multiple, multiple posts about this flyer in this thread is that the flyer should not set off a panic. A sudden entire change taking place mid-year likely does not make sense and would be the opposite of everything Marriott has done so far in its slow methodical merger.

kaizen7

I wonder if an SPG member regularly booked multiple rooms ....
say a member who book 3 rooms for 20 nights .... he will have 60 nights but only 20 BiB nights ?

And for conversion ... isnt Marriot mentioning about grandfathering current Lifetime tiers ?

For the current accounts who havent reach the LT requirements ... then use the recorded night would be easiest way