JCrew7384

If you combine my Marriott and SPG nights (at 1:1) and points at (3:1), then I am currently over the threshold for Lifetime Marriott Platinum. Hoping they do a nice easy combination...

sdsearch

No, all someone needs to do to earn a lot more points per night is to "follow the promos". Ie, only stay at Marriott when there's a promo going on, and do whatever it takes to maximize that promo (ie, if it's for 20 nights, stay only 20 nights and no more, if it's for 7 stays, do 7 one-night stays, no longer stays, and no more stays, etc.

I'm not saying that would work for you, but I'm saying that can explain how people can get much higher points totals for the same number of nights. "Following the bonus" can easily double your points earnings or more.

Oh, and then there's the Chase Marriott credit card. While you don't have it in Europe, a lot of people you're comparing to do. That's a 50% bonus on all stays (100% bonus on stays at brands like Residence Inn, which earn half of what you earn at many other brands). And did you get at least one signup bonus for singing up for the credit card?

And, did you stay significant amounts at brands where you only earn half, but forgot that you only earned half there?

So perhaps you might have needed to stay at $400/night properties to get 3x the points, but not everyone did. Just "following the promos" and using the credit card would get someone at least 2.5x the points.

EuropeanPete

I did those same maths, and as a non-American I hope that a future merged program won't require a foreigner to stay 2.5x as much as an American to get lifetime status!

I checked my progress towards lifetime status on Marriott.com and I've barely ever stayed at Marriott hotels, but I see that I've had 11% of the required nights for Lifetime silver, but have only earned 3% of the amount of points. If this were to continue I'd need nearly 2,500 nights before I get to Platinum.

With Starwood I do average something approaching $400-500 a night, but I would hope that would give me an advantage rather than just bring me even with people who live in Marriott Courtyards.

sdsearch

Are you saying that there are no promotions (MegaBonus or otherwise) for Europeans?

See, the 2.5x was a combination of promotions and the credit card. Only .5 was from the credit card, which I understand is not available to Europeans. But 2x is from "maxing out" promotions (and staying in other chains when there's no promotional earning to made from a Marriott stay at that point). I thought those Marriott promotions were worldwide?

But: It's a change of behavior, not (AFAIK) a change of geography, that's needed to get 2x (or more) from promotions. If you use Marriott for all your stays, not just the ones where you earn from promotions, you're not going to get 2x. You have to have the flexibility to "follow the promos" (from one program to the next) when you've used up the promo at one program, to earn the maximum points in each program. You can't earn the maximum points in each program (relative to nights in that program) if you always use that program, promotion or not.

For example, in the current MegaBonus, I only earned a free night cert for 2 stays, and then I earn 10000 points for 5 more stays. (After that I get a feedle 1000 bonus points per stay.) So I'm staying 7 one-night stays during this period, and unless I happen to get a great rate at Marriott.com for another 1 or 2 or 3 one-night stays, that's all the stays I'm going to do with Marriott this MegaBonus cycle. So while I won't earn many nights this quarter, I'll earn 2000 bonus points per night this quarter (not counting the first two nights where I earned a free night cert instead). On cheap stays (not much more than $100/night, sometimes even a bit less), 2000 bonus points per night is very signifcant on a relative basis, even though it's much on a totality basis if it's limited (as it is) to 5 nights this quarter.

There are many people who'll get this same promo, and yet do 5 3-night stays, and they'll earn only the same 10000 bonus points for their 3-night stays as I do for my 1-night stays. So they'll only earn about 670 bonus points per night, while I earn 2000 bonus points per night, simply because I chose to do one-night stays at Marriott and go to other chains (where there are other promos) for the rest of the nights I need. And anyone who does 5 10-night stays will only earn 200 bonus points per night .

JBord

This may not apply to you, but I forgot to mention this. It's a lot easier to get points if you're able to use a Marriott Visa. But large corporations rarely allow this, because they get kickbacks on corporate cards. When I was staying 50+ nights per year for work, I probably could have doubled my point total if I paid for those rooms on my own card for reimbursement rather than on a corporate card.

txpenny

Your assumption is correct. I'm a partner in our company and we all pay our own expenses.

kennycrudup

Yeah, seriously. I don't stay in hotels anywhere near as often as I did when traveling, but if MR compromised my existing LTP I'd really start shopping by price and not loyalty.

If they did something like that, taking into effect one's existing totals (2K/4.1M), i.e., not having to requalify again, I'd be very happy!

Jaenks

Until Marriott keeps the points requirement for lifetime status it is not worldwide chain but solely US one. Continuing to keep the huge advantage to US residents with branded credit cards or/and big spenders in their crappy overpriced US hotels. The share of non US lifetime Gold or Platinum members is less than 5% probably.

X-ON

One would think that they at least could skip the points requirement for non-US based accounts or at least accounts that never resided in the US. One way of monitoring this could be too see if your account been credited with any points originated from a co-branded CC.... Just a thought...

sdsearch

Marriott is at outlier among hotel programs to count all points toward any status anyway. Any other hotel program which counts points toward any status (usually annual status rather than lifetime status) count only "base" points, ie, only points earned from stays and not even bonuses on stays. So with all other hotel programs earning status through points is just a way to give status quicker to those people who have very expensive stays.

Why Marriott dreamed up a lifetime status qualification on total points from all sources, I don't know. That's almost like an airline bringing back lifetime status based on year of flying and total amount of redeemable miles earned from all sources? AA tried for year to get rid of that (until succeeding in Dec 2011), so why did Marriott add something like that after that? (Hm, probably because their star IT department was incapable of doing anything different. Coincidentally, it was AA's IT issues that kept them from changing how their lifetime status was computed until Dec 2011.)

Meanwhile, all your suggestions would also require a competent IT department. Does that sound like the one which did the Fall 2017 Megabonus "unlock"? Does that sound like the one which took two months to issue the brand bonus for Summer 2017 Megabonus only to accidentally count Marriott and JW as the same brand?

Jaenks

I hope that MR LT requirements would be either return to previous 1000/800/600 nights without points requirement or combined MR and SPG 750+500 for Platinum, 500+250 for Gold without points requirement and 250 for Silver. All nights counts. Already achieved LT Platinum and Gold will be matched.The benefit for US credit card holders and/or big spenders would be faster redemption points achievement of Travel Packages or hotel nights. Win-win to everybody.

jjmoore

Additionally, I would like to see MR subtract rollover nights from lifetime nights to give all members an accurate readout of how many nights they have stayed, and then base lifetime status on this real number. I will have 115 rollover nights next year, and these nights will double count on my lifetime nights, which should not happen IMHO. This has happened the last several years that I have stayed more than 75 nights per year.

bigshooter

Unless all existing LTP get to keep their status I really hope they don't make any changes to rollover nights counting. I have 895 nights, but I know a lot of those were rollover. Once I reached LTP and with the Marriott/Starwood merger I have been spreading my stays around and even started staying at Hyatt's (I have a property that gives me 2500 bonus points per stay). If I needed to worry about hitting 750 butt in bed nights I would have kept them all at Marriotts... hopefully if they do change things up my LT SPG nights will keep me whole.

jjmoore

I think MR would have a PR nightmare if they take away already-gained lifetime status when the program changes. If I were in your shoes, I wouldn't be worried about that, nor would I change my stay habits for such.

Wickersley

Tonight, assuming the “roll over” is in place at year end, is my LTP Qualification night

Based in the UK, although I travel extensively, the points have never been an issue - currently at 2.4m life time points; with no CC “bump”

*** and relax ***