New Redemption Rates (preview)
 

Yup, Starwood Lurker mentioned it in the SPG forum..

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/star...ion-rates.html

Cheers.

Thumbs up so far! ^

Lots of key omissions from the new chart, like London.

Yes, there are some values here but there are also a lot of average properties bumped to category 6-7, like 50,000 points for most of the average New York properties.

And, as expected, many of the Paris properties are category 7. I'm guessing that will be London, too. Yes, the excellent Renaissance Paris Republique is category 5 and, thus, 5,000 points less per night under the new chart, but if everyone redeems there it will undoubtably be a category 6 or 7 hotel by 2020.

So, yes, by 2020, I expect all of the nice hotels in the big cities and big destinations to be category 7 or 8.

Who cares if the new Marriott program is more "rich" when the points are worth less? Oh yeah, then there are the resort fees and destination fees that have spread well beyond beach properties.

So far I think it looks good. My concern is at the other end of the spectrum. SPG actually has category 1 and 2 hotels, for instance there are 3 category 2 hotels in Orlando which are available for only 3k SPG points (9k Marriott points) a night on weekends and 4k on weekdays. This has been one of the weaknesses of Marriott and the continual category creep.

But I am hopeful for the future and look forward to exploiting the temporary low rates before category 8 exists to visit at least one high end hotel.

Now just if we knew what was going to happen with travel packages.

So, I took the 91 properties whose values were provided and categorized them.

• Marriott Rewards Category 4 or 5 -> New Category 3
• MR Category 6 -> New Category 4
• MR Category 7 -> New Category 5
• MR Category 8 -> New Category 5 or 6
• MR Category 9 -> New Category 6 or 7
• RC Tier 2 or 3 -> New Category 6
• RC Tier 4 or 5 -> New Category 7
• SPG Category 2 -> New Category 3
• SPG Category 3 or 4 -> New Category 4 or 5
• SPG Category 5 -> New Category 5 (73%), 6 (23%) or 7 (4%)
• SPG Category 6 -> New Category 6 (21%) or 7 (79%)
• SPG Category 7 -> New Category 7 (17%) or 8 (83%)

Across these hotels, the average change is a devaluation of... 0.66% -- a net increase of 27K points against a base value of 4,068,000 (one night per property, weighted equally).

The worst devaluations on a categorywide basis were SPG Category 2 (45% increase on average), SPG 3 (43%), RC Tier 2 (25%), and Marriott Category 9 (14%). The best increases in value were Marriott Category 5 (30% decrease on average), Marriott Category 6 (17%), RC Tier 5 (14%), and Marriott Category 4 (13%). Everything else was 10% or less in either direction.

Now, this could be a cherry-picked set of hotels intending to make the program look as good as possible... or it could be that this isn't actually a massive devaluation, but merely the realignment of ~20 categories into 8.

My follow-up question is :when does peak pricing apply? :rolleyes:

It's spin to make it look good. And what's to stop any of the hotels that dropped a category in the sample from increasing a category in 2020?

The J.W. Marriott Hotel in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic is hardly illustrative. I'd guess that 90% of folks redeeming points in the Dominican Republic go to a beach property, not a city center hotel in the capital. So yes, it's dropping a category but it's not truly illustrative. A better example would have better properties in the U.S. Virgin Islands, including the Marriott on St. Thomas, supposedly the number one property for points redemption by Marriott's American customers.

And, of course, releasing an "illustrative" example that shows two resort hotels in Puerto Rico dropping a category is designed to make the changes look good since Puerto Rico's tourism was wiped out. I'm actually surprised that these hotels didn't drop even further.

Even some of the Mexican hotels dropping a category isn't a surprise, given all the violent crime and travel cautions.

Definitely going to be a blitz of award bookings on August 1 (if it hasn't already started).

St. Regis NYC for 60k is a steal (as is Paris Republique for 35k). But where is the Essex House?

On the whole, this is reasonably encouraging evidence we're not going to see a massive devaluation. And that August 1 will bring some incredible bargains pending introduction of Cat 8.

So now it's a devaluation because some properties might be more expensive in 2020?

They might replace the welcome amenity / breakfast with expired instant ramen noodles, too.

Reward points -- of all ilk -- are an inflationary currency. This is hardly news. And if you'd like to kvetch about peak vs. standard vs. off-peak, feel free -- that's a real devaluation that is only somewhat countered by statements that Marriott intends to move toward the SPG last-room-availability model for rewards. And, hey, if the combined program doesn't offer a good value for the properties you want to stay at, feel free to try the competition (who will be busily devaluing their points also, of course, but perhaps in a way that doesn't affect you as much personally). But, so far, the mappings just don't match the sky-is-falling suggestions some people had that every property would be a Category 8.

I'd be very surprised if none of the hotels didn't increase. But even if they don't, there is yet another "deval" coming when they move to the off-peak/peak award pricing model. I'm guessing some resorts may even end up being "peak" priced the whole year. It will be interesting to see how things shake out after a year or two into this new model.

Yes . . . you should definitely switch to IHG or Hyatt.

Except there's no data here to show they're worth less. Stating that they'll all be much more expensive in the future and then using that as proof they're much more expensive is rather odd.

What evidence? A fraction of a fraction of the hotels? Give me a break.