UA-NYC

Sounds like a MOLA to me

GoPhils

If you're talking just MR and no SPG nights, that person would likely already be current LTP/future LTPP if they had 2 million points because MR did not have a years of status requirement. But if they never reached Plat, then they would have had to have at least 11 years of Gold (averaging 69 nights or more per year).

CJKatl

She is oversharing. She is giving you TMI. She is telling you how the sausage is made. Here we go...

According to members.Marriott while in the background the programs will apparently continue to run separately until the end of 2018, both will be under the new rules in the new unnamed program. As far as we members will be concerned it will be the new program. In other words instead of one step where they move everyone into a new single program at once it will be two steps, they will convert the three present programs into the new program and in six months move everyone into a single platform. As far as we the public are concerned it will be a new program but as far as Marriott team members they will still need to access our information as they do now, within the separate programs, even though the programs will be operating under the same rules. In 2019 all accounts will be moved to a single platform.

There will be a new program. The beginning of both sets of T&Cs say this, all the marketing materials say this and why do you think we would have all the information about points conversion and new status levels if they were going to continue the old programs? And why would they want the expense or confusion of running multiple programs at once for the long term? And why would Marriott be telling us about the benefits in the new program if we were not moving to a new program?

When you merge your accounts you will be able to choose whether you want to keep your MR or SPG account number as your number in the new program. That is perhaps where the rep is getting some of her confusion. My understanding is there may be a few of us who will have to get a new number.

So when you merge, you choose, let's say, your MR number all your SPG info will be moved to your Marriott account and will be in one place. For now it will be accessed through the MR number and apparently existing system, although eventually everything will be moved into a single system. Either way, in Aug you are under the new rules in the new program. Even if you do not merge at first you will just have two different accounts under the new rules, one in each legacy system.

TrojanHorse

Wow, that ought to expand the pool of LTPP's quite a bit

As for me, I'm currently Old MR LTG right now [MR] based on the old MR system of nights and points.
I have the nights for the current MR LT Plat, more than 10 years as a MR Plat but NOT the points

So based on what you are saying - this by itself qualifies me for LTPP alone. I'm referring to the Old MR gold status. By definition my 10 years of old MR Plat status also include old MR Gold status qualification. This includes the 750 nights lifetime & I have met the Old MR Gold point threshold of 1.6M LT MR Points.

This does not even consider what I have in the SPG bank which is significant [but not enough to qualify for LTPP alone using my SPG data]

What I want: I want LTPP in August - I do believe I will get it in Jan but due to what seems to be heavy fall travel, I would like to get that LTPP ASAP.

RogerD408

It's HUCA time! I do believe that agent was making things up as she goes. Until some time in August there will the the three existing programs, only MR & RC do you get to choose which you want to participate. Then, some time in August we will be asked to merge our accounts to create an MPG account where our existing numbers will be added together and our MPG status will be determined. We are supposed to have until the end of the year to augment our status under the legacy rules. After 12/31, there will be only one program, with one set of rules/benefits and that's what we have going forward. It has not been stated if we lose the ability to augment under legacy rules once me merge or if we need to hold off. The beauty of FT is we get to speculate about all sorts of bad things that may never come about and until all the program rules are released, we get to fret about very minor things.

This is how I read what's about to happen. I have no authority to make it happen. But it's what lets me sleep at night.

CJKatl

You are correct in how it will appear to us, the members, but in the background my understanding is when we call the agents are going to have to access us under one of the legacy programs until next year. Not having been on the phone I do not know for sure but my guess is the agent was telling the caller how it will appear to her without any realization that would confuse us members. It will be the same program under the new rules, but the agent's access to that information will remain as it is now until after Jan 1.

pinniped

I can confirm that the points-transfer rules and processes still work as they always have. (There was some question on one of these threads whether a person-to-person Marriott transfer still incremented the recipients lifetime total.)

Notes:
- Marriott-to-Starwood transfers happen instantly. (We knew that...)
- A Starwood account must be open for 30 days before participating in a Starwood-to-Starwood transfer. If you try to transfer points prior to the 30 days, you will get a "Starwood number not found" error. A bit sloppy error messaging, but I doubt this rates very high on anyone's bug list. When the 30 days have passed, the error message goes away. In Starwood-land, the transfer partners must reside at the same address. My wife, in my case.
- When you request a Starwood-to-Starwood transfer, it does not happen immediately. In my case, 1 week passed and I had to phone in. The agent said "Your request is missing the first initial of the transfer recipient." I provided the initial, and the transfer completed 3 days later. Since the website only has a field for the last name, it might be best just to phone in your request to begin with.
- You do not get an email when a Starwood-to-Starwood transfer completes. You just have to check your balance periodically.
- Starwood-to-Marriott transfers happen instantly. I was transferring to my wife's Marriott account which had been open about 40 days at this point, but I do not believe that there is a 30-day rule like with Starwood.
- When you do the Marriott-to-Marriott transfer, it is the transferring party who must call. So I booked the hotel we wanted first, and then sent my wife an email with my MR#, her MR#, the email addresses associated with both accounts, my Alaska number, and our account passwords. It all must happen in one phone call, in our case initiated by her. Points transfer, Travel Package redeemed, hotel certificate attached to existing reservation. Interestingly, even though there were a few thousand MR points in my account, the full award amount transferred across.
- My lifetime total increased by the full award amount, visible immediately.

Total time from opening of her SPG account - about 45 days.

I'll also point out that everything is above-board: wife lives with me, and we're actually going to complete the hotel stay that we booked. Some FTers may see this as an opportunity to invent family members, cancel the hotel reservation, redeposit the points, and do more cycles of transfers. I would assume that either Starwood or Marriott would flag that as suspicious activity (?).

mncnc

I am a little confused by this. Can't someone within the MR program currently transfer points to someone else in the MR program because they feel like it? No stays necessary? I'm at 1.5M points, I want to have 1.6 before all this shakes out, looking to get 2,0 before the end of he year. I have eight years I think of MR plat under the old program, four gold. If they change the old to the new then I'm golden, I'm not counting on that. So my father, who is currently MR LT Plat feels like giving me 50K points for the hell of it. Is that a problem? I didn't think it was, the above post makes me wonder.

swag

Current rules have a limit:

A limit of 50,000 points per year may be transferred into or out of a member’s account. Members who are transferring points in order to satisfy a specific award may exceed the 50,000 limit up to the amount needed to satisfy the reservation.

dsquared37

While I'm aware of the allowance to exceed the 50K limit my question is: is this a only a one time allowance per year?

crimsona

Yes, the fine print does specify once per year (but I believe it counts from the transferring account)

tods27

Sorry, I've been busy the past week. My point was that although the website simply says "10 years as Plat", that actually doesn't mean all years that you were Plat as SPG does not count certain gifted years. I'm not sure why you keep talking about convoluted calculations or secret calculation. It may be as simple as "years that were comped at status don't count towards lifetime status". It may not be, but we don't know. SPG doesn't consider that they are trying to trick people, the issue with comped years is in the fine print somewhere. Consider the years that I was MR gold only through the Rewards Plus program. I'm assuming that they know this and could exclude it if they want to. They may not. You just need to acknowledge that not all the fine print is out for this.

CJKatl

First, of course that means ten years at MR Plat or Gold, as MR Gold will also count towards the ten years requirement as it is the fifty night level.

Marriott has been very straight forward about this. If you were called Plat or Gold or Silver it will not be taken away retroactively. They will not be all of a sudden out of nowhere secretly and suddenly deciding that your year at Plat will no longer count because it was gifted or due to a birthday night being counted or whatever. If someone was, let's say, Plat in 2014 that member does not need to worry that Marriott is going to suddenly say that year does not count because it was gifted or was a soft landing or was because of a MegaBonus where extra nights were awarded. The definitive decision that the member had the status was made years ago. The exception, linking accounts between SPG and MR, was announced in April and reconfirmed a few weeks later. Had Marriott intended for anything else not to count it would have been announced then as well. Marriott has never been sneaky or deceptive and it's sad to push forward that they may act this way within the next few weeks. If you want to believe this go ahead, but it's just not realistic.

The Rewards Plus members may be another exception, but that would be akin to the SPG linked accounts because the status was based on qualifying for a different loyalty program. But stating there may be an issue with Rewards Plus members is a far cry from trying to scare MR members into thinking that there may be a wholesale recalculation on who was what level in the past or that someone who was comped a night to make the next level or was given a soft landing might find out that level is no longer recognized.

jeanie

Yes, but you can receive more than 1 transfer of 50K points in a given year. I know this from experience. I have had 2 people each transfer me 50K points during the same year, for a total of 100K points.

dsquared37

Thank you. When reading the T&Cs it does indeed sound like 1 transfer FROM an account per year but there's no wording on limitations into an account.