DELee

Ok, I don't compete with the likes of lexdevil and others who already have 30+ reservations but I'm looking at where to stay over these next few months.

In my pursuit of LT Platinum, I've kept most of my room nights at MR properties over the past year. And not that I've seen much in terms of great promotions at HH or SPG or WOH, but I keep looking at other places that maybe more convenient that are not Marriott.

Anyway, wanted to throw it out to the general MR FT populace, do you:David

getagb

craigthemif

I suspect we'll see a relatively juicy promo for the autumn. There might be an executive or two wanting to show the bosses how wonderful the new loyalty progamme is for driving revenue growth...

sdsearch

I think it's less likely for late summer, more likely for autumn, given that they can't even yet tell us when in August the merger is technically happening. I would think they have to get that out of the way before they can worry about announcing a new promotion.

I wouldn't surprised if isn't some simply-scalable promotion (X number of points for each stay or Y number of points for each night after the N'th), simply because they may not know until the last minute what the start and end dates might be (and more complicated promotions like stay NN nights to get ZZZZZ points don't work very well if they're not designed to a specific promotion duration). Plus they've tended toward those simpler promotions of late anyway.

Lizie

I'd like to think so to but Marriott have just released a tweet on twitter telling us to 'Get ready to redeem for free nights in more destinations than ever this August' which would go to explain why they've been selling Starwood points so frequently as till late. Are we sure there actually is going to be the usual type promotion appearing or is this it?

txpenny

Wow, with only one week left before the expiration of the SMB, I've seen no new MegaBonus speculation thread. Marriott has finally figured out how to chill the masses - complete the merger.

So, what are the chances that M does business as usual and rolls out a Fall MegaBonus?

What are the chances that their IT can handle a MB and a merger?

UpgradeMe

Speculation: Late Summer/Fall 2018 Marriott and/or Starwood Promotion(s)

jjmoore

The spring megabonus has taken me longer to achieve than any other to date.... they set this one up for the true grinders, but didn't really reward as nicely as in years past. Anyway, I will have my 53rd night during the bonus on Thursday night this week... so I barely eeked it out.

I would hope that MR puts out a nice promo this fall to keep members of both programs interested... we shall see, but I think that would be a wise move by management..... not holding my breath, though.

sdsearch

I would call that "maxing out" rather than "acheiving". 53 nights was set up by Marriott as a limit, not as a goal.

joeags

I believe that they should do something like last summers' promo of exploring the various properties and scoring more bonuses by staying at more brands. It would be good timing...

jjmoore

Not so sure about that... as some of us have limited options for hotels. For those that are city dwellers in their travels, this would give a somewhat unfair advantage, where many places I am traveling, I am limited to FI / CY .. .and if I'm lucky, SH / RI

That's my two cents. Maybe a spend-based promotion wouldn't be a bad thing, as this would reward the big spenders, as well as those that just plain stay a lot of nights at cheaper properties in the places where the buses don't run as frequently (this is me). A spend based promotion gives everyone an equal opportunity, and though some people spend way more than others, I only have my own spending as a reference point, and would likely be happy with something like this.

escape4

I am hoping Marriott will come up with a good promo once the IT issues are in the rearview mirror.

To answer your question at the moment the best I know of is Hilton x2 points stackable with 2500 LH miles per cash stay. It makes 1-night stays very attractive with Hilton especially at hotels at the cheaper end of the scale, Turkey and South East Asia for example.

Duke787

I hope we see something period. I've got at least 10 stays between now and EOY so I'm hoping there is something in the pipeline for Q3/Q4 -- though in fairness it won't actively drive me away (since they have me going after Plat and LTP now with the combined stats).

I ended up at a HGI a couple weeks ago in Bucharest because of other factors and was happy that Hilton was still running a Double Points promo when a Marriott stay wouldn't have seen even a 750 point bonus.

secretalcoholic

I've got about 50 nights planned at various properties until end of October...so I'm hoping a promotion will come up soon.

The HH and IHG promotions (IHG targeted to my company specifically) makes them seem attractive, but I've never been a fan of them both.

MSPeconomist

Sadly my prediction is that Starriott will just offer a lot of status comps to encourage people to come (back). The merger is swelling the elite ranks already and of course this will just make it worse.