I have a stupid question.

I am only a Gold level on Marriott and on my online account it says:

Elite membership level: Gold
Additional nights needed to maintain Gold: 0
Additional nights needed to achieve Platinum: 4
Nights stayed this year: 71

What will it say when I'll be Platinum ?

Elite membership level: Platinum
Additional nights needed to maintain Platinum: 0
Additional nights needed to achieve Platinum: 0
Nights stayed this year: xxx

Doesn't make sence...

Thanks.

MR PSYCHEPHYLAX
Current point balance: 427,025
Elite membership level: Platinum
Additional nights needed to maintain Platinum: 0
Nights stayed this year: 185

Doesn't make sense but that's exactly what it says (emphasized by me)

Biggest problem I can see with this is that the mid- and low-tier properties would suddenly be put at a big disadvantage against their competition.

For example, usually a Fairfield guest could easily select a Hampton instead. They tend to be near each other along highways and roughly in the same price range, although Hampton occasionally creeps upward a half-class on the quality/price scale. But roughly...they're head-to-head.

If you all of a sudden chop the potential long-term benefits of choosing Fairfield significantly, I imagine a lot of guests will start checking out Hampton and, by extension, also think about moving their higher-value stays from Marriott to Hilton as well.

Besides, Marriott is perfectly happy to hand a Gold card to a 50-night Fairfield guy. All of the benefits of Goldness happen at the higher-end properties, so the card and the welcome kit might actually tease that guest up the chain a bit. It can't hurt...

Thanks! I was curious.

This line really says it all, though I'm not sure why an apology is needed.

What troubles me about Marriott is that this is in fact a lie. I received the same answer as OP (in my case, rejected for a measly silver!) but other FTers have received comp'd MR Gold and Silver. It is one thing to be consistent in matching status (or not, as the case may be), or to offer a standardized challenge as AA does; it is another to treat customers inequitably depending on the whims of the CSR or the phases of the moon. Inconsistency does not generate goodwill - more likely the opposite.

Perhaps you could try again, though for Silver there isn't much of a point. Marriott has reset Silver as the giveaway level - meaning Stay 1 will earn you 15pts/$ provided you use the credit card - with the first real "earned" level at 50 nights.

Don't ask me...I'm not sure why they set it up this way. Seems to me like they'd want to stick another level in there instead of making everybody grind it out to 50 before somebody throws 'em a bone.

HH also has Silver as their giveaway, but they set up plenty of backdoors into Gold. As we've already covered here, some like that and some don't.

SPG has Preferred Plus as their giveaway, and nobody really knows what the heck that means.

Marriott rewards credit card (Visa) was giving Silver status, but a quick check doesn't seem to pull up that offer any longer. Getting status could be as simple as getting another credit card if you can locate that offer.
TT

There's a lot of Marriott timeshare owners out there with MR VISA's who'd disagree, even if they aren't business travelers. We stayed far more days in Marriott hotels this year than the two weeks at our resort, and I just booked a travel package for Oz with our combined points.

No way would we be staying almost exclusively at Marriott hotels (compared to ICH, *wood and some of the other chains) if it weren't for for the MR program and the easy availabiity of the lower elite status of silver. It's gotten us better rooms on numerous occasions, as well as the occasional mistaken platinum treatment. Strangely, our timeshare stays even count towards our room totals, even though not on a paid rate.

Personally, I think Marriott has it right (regarding the "official" policy on status matches), but, as always promulgated on FT, it doesn't hurt to hang up and call back if one doesn't hear the answer they want to hear

Pat

I'm a Hyatt Diamond and an SPG Platinum. I made Marriott Silver through staying 10 nights. Other than the bonus points, I don't see any benefit to being Silver.

What is simply amazing to me is that I did five stays to get the ten nights needed, WITHOUT a status match request. lol. I reserved, checked in, and stayed with the masses - though I must say that Marriott makes it relatively easy to buy a room on the club floor at reasonable rates.

Though I have been on the receiving end from the airlines a few times, I am personally against status comps. There is tremendous dilution of programs. The expense of those benefits just leads to their ultimate reduction. And, as many a hotel manager (and some airline execs) will tell you, they don't always lead to increased revenue - or even revenue to match the benefits offered.

What I like better are advance revenue commitments. United has done it with the $20K travel card for 1K status, or something like that. If you put your money up, here's the status in advance. Then, you have the benefits to use while you actually earn the status for the future.

I do appreciate how Marriott makes its top levels tough to achieve. Maybe I'm living in a dream world, but it seems that the top level isn't diluted like it is at a lot of other chains.

I personally asked for and received a comp Gold Elite from Marriott this spring. The comp was based upon my 100+ nights at Hilton. Since May I have made Gold for next year. Having had limited stays at Marriott's during the past I'm sure they appreciate my 50+ (mostly full service) nights in seven months and feel they were justified in giving me the comp upgrade. We will see what next year brings.

Shinbal,

"What is simply amazing to me is that I did five stays to get the ten nights needed, WITHOUT a status match request."

You meen you stayed five times with each stay of one night and got tthe status that you achieve after having 10 nights?

Does anyone have an update on this? I am a newly minted HH Diamond and just took a job with a company that prefers Marriott (go figure). I just completed a 70-day stay at Hilton (which earned me my Diamond status) and am planning a trip to LAS for work 2/13 - 2/19 where work is requesting me to stay at a Marriott. I would much prefer to get comped something in Marriott and switch my business over there versus starting from scratch.

Was looking for any experiences here, successful or not, that people havent posted yet.

Well, I have my own experience to report now!

I called MR and spoke to someone at the general customer service number. They offered me a Gold challenge if I complete 12 nights in the next 3 months. While I am not 100% happy with that I do like the fact that they will fast track me to Gold when I move all my business over to them from HH.

Although I'm not a huge fan of widespread comping, I don't believe that this is true. Whether it's airlines or hotels, the people who are actually frequent-travelers will always occupy 1000's of times more revenue-seat-miles or qualifying-room-nights than comped elites. If a comped elite suddenly turns into a frequent-traveler with that airline/chain, great...that's the marketing purpose behind the comp. If they don't, then they don't affect the system at large.

This was a big thread on the HH board when they were comping Gold to everyone with a pulse. "The hotels will be so full of fake Golds that real Golds who check in late in the day will get stuck in crappy rooms." I stayed at a lot of Hiltons during that time - I started as a "fake" Gold and became a "real" one, so obviously the comp served its marketing purpose in my case. I never got a crappy room because a hotel was so full of Golds they didn't know where to put me. In fact, at some properties I'd have my name on a little board as Guest of the Day. Why? Because I was the only Gold there! Their marketing people obviously wanted to get as many Gold cards into circulation as possible, and hopefully for them...it translated into incremental stays.

If a chain mails out a comp and that guest stays 1 time, the chain wins. The revenue from 1 stay will far outstrip the costs of printing/mailing the card, awarding a few bonus points, and letting the guest have a free Coke and eat fifty cents or a dollar's worth of food in the lounge. If the guest throws his free Gold card in trash (as I did when Hilton accidentally mailed me three different Gold cards for different reasons, all with new account numbers), then they lose out on their marketing costs. Better backend data would fix that.

Again, I'm fine with Marriott's marketing strategy: anybody who cares can have Silver before their 1st stay. It's a freebie for people who know they're going to do a few stays and like the idea of being a notch up from people who truly don't care. No comps to Gold, but you can occasionally Challenge. Platinum is, for the most part, off-limits until your 75th night. Overall, it's a pretty well-rounded strategy that keeps most people happy. Only common complaint I read here is that they don't have a level in the 25-night range like the other programs do.

What program are you in? According to the website you only get 3 points per dollar at Marriott locations and one point for all other purchases.

What am I missing?