I got an email from Marriott today regarding the Freddies, and I was asked to vote them a 10. What caught my eye was the statement on the right side of the email which stated that Marriott awarded 126 billion points and 1.6 billion miles in 2007. My first reaction was amazement at the number of points. My second thought was that too many people have foolishly decided to earn miles instead of points. I interpret the statement to mean the miles were earned from paid stays and not award conversions or travel packages.

I too got one of those emails, but didn't notice the numbers you cite. (They are mind boggling, or at least they boggle my mind. I wonder how many of them have been or ever will be redeemed.) The obvious purpose of the email was to tell us how superior is their loyalty program versus others, but I read it to see what they were offering in return for my vote. Nothing! I should tout them though they propose to do nothing special for me. Wouldn't it have been smart of them to "encourage" use with something like a measly 500points to vote in the Freddies? (Yes, I can be bought, even for very little, but then that is what loyalty programs are about, isn't it?)

While I like the MR program, I'd be reluctant to vote for them another time without a pledge that they won't devalue points again this year...like they did right after the voting closed in 2007!

Revalue your points . . . vote low now!

I have voted and not one hotel vote went to Marriott

edited to take this back, I did give them best website

I'd be willing to bet that 1.6B miles is the total number of miles transferred by marriott into all airline programs. It would not make sense to exclude travel packages, as they have to be a hefty percentage of miles, and they are clearly trying to "boast" how many miles they purchase and transfer.

Not everyone onlye earns miles and not everyone takes travel packages (even I on occasion redeem a few nights at a marriott without using a travel package). But most of my redemptions are travel packages and always have been.

Even if they pruchase miles at 1 cent, that costs marriott $16M per year (likely more than that, but probably less than 2 cents per mile).

The 126B points translate to 504,000 weeks at a cat 6 hotel and 60B miles.
That would cost them (say $40 a night cost???) $141M in hotel and $600 to $1200M in miles. Obvioiusly people don't use that many miles, and they do accrue balances. And not everyone gets 250K points in a year or even over serveral years.

Billy

I currently do most of my business stays with Marriott and greatly enjoy my primary property, but I gotta admit from a rewards-program perspective, Marriott is starting to look like the #3 program because of the availability of award rooms and treatment of elites and properties arbitrarily designated as "resorts".

In the past year, I redeemed Starpoints at Oktoberfest, the Berlin Marathon, the NYC Marathon, and the Rose Bowl - always at a "desirable" property in the city. I checked Marriott on each and every one of them - no availability (except for the Rose Bowl - there were more distant LA-area options available). To me, this ability to book awards for "sorta big" events is key. I know ALL of the programs block out the Super Bowl, Olympics, etc. But being able to book rooms at events a notch down from that (in as short as 3 week's notice) is incredibly valuable.

My '07 votes went to Marriott because of the Travel Packages and past success booking awards. My '08 votes will go to Starwood. Hilton timed their announcement of "no capacity controls" well for the Freddies, and I already took advantage by booking a room yesterday that was unavailable on Wednesday, but I want to see more before I cast a Hilton vote. Starwood was good to me in '07 and will get my votes because of that.

I still enjoy other Marriott features like EEO's, BB/PP's, the gift card promotions, and the Hertz HPR promotion. I also enjoy the fact that Marriott treats MVCI like an actual "member of the family", whereas SVO and HGVC stays are sort of a mixed bag of results.

But those aren't terribly related to Marriott Rewards (other than EEO). The difficulty of finding desirable awards - especially compared to what members of my equal level at HH and SPG have always had - leaves a bit of a bad taste in my mouth as far as MR goes.

Keep in mind that a lot of people who don't travel regularly earn the miles over the points. My sister, for example, isn't loyal to hotel chain due to the fact that her company travel agency books her 5 business trips a year in whichever hotel is closest to the trade show/convention she's going to - so, instead of ever earning hotel points, she always earns the airline miles.

Guess y'all know I will not be giving them anything-not a low vote-they might as well not be on the ballot this year as far as I am concerned.

I voted them a straight 10 across the board the first year I voted on the Freddies.

Nice to see I will be joined in not voting for Marriott Rewards by some of the posters on this board.

Did anyone else notice that in the list of Credit Cards the Marriott Premier Visa card was again not listed? They had both the base Signature Marriott cards and the Business card, but not the Premier. While I still might not have voted for the Premier card, I definitely believe it to be head and shoulders better than the other two.

bigguyinpasadena, I agree with you. Marriott did not get any vote from me. I am still disappointed about the devaluation of points right after the voting ended last year.
Hilton gets my vote this year.

Freddies are sort of a joke. In the not so distant past certain properties or airlines have received a large number of negative votes. The Freddy people declared that this was somehow not right, and readjusted the ratings. Cooked numbers from surveys make the entire survey suspect.

I also suspect there must be some kind of rights issued to use the words Freddie award in advertisements, and if so, there is the reason for fudging results.

I noticed the whole list of credit cards was a bit squirrelly. To me, it seems like each program should have its flagship credit card listed. I noticed several programs with duplicates - where a markedly inferior card was listed alongside a better card - and I noticed omissions, such as this Marriott one - which actually is a pretty decent product that would probably command some votes. (Although I think I'd still give the edge to SPG Amex.)

No I don't think I'll do that.

I also voted them a straight ten a couple of times, but this year I'll probably just sit it out. I don't want to trash Marriott. I don't think they deserve it. But they also don't deserve another round of tens in light of the devaluation, either.

Actually, its not so much that I begrudge them their devealuations. Its still a great program, and Marriott suits have every right to make appropriate business decisions in changing/modifying the T&Cs.

It basically has to do with the way they went about it last year. To a secondary degree it has to do with their apparent failure to reign in the handful of hotels that seem determined to find ways to "short-circuit" the system.

Therefore, this time around, I'm respectfully opting not to reward that sort of behavior.

I simply ignore the email this time. I suspect that too many of us voted for them may have led to increase in rates and bumping up Category.