How Effective (Really) are Hotel Promotions?
 

I'll use the latest Marriott one as a case in point, but the same is true of the MegaBonus or Hyatt's Faster Free Nights or whatever.

You get 10,000 bonus points after every 3rd stay. From reading the majority of the posts on the thread here, people appear to fall into one of three camps:

- Happy, because they've already got stays booked and now they get free bonus points.
- Happy, because they've got long stays booked that they're now going to split into multiple short stays to earn free bonus points.
- Upset, because they've got long stays booked that they don't want to split into multiple short stays so they feel screwed on the bonus points.

In none of those situations do I see Marriott getting any benefit whatsoever. I can see two situations that they think they are encouraging, whether or not its true:

- People who book one more Marriott stay than they would have otherwise, because they've got two and the next one gets them the bonus.
- People who book on Marriott over the summer instead of the competition so that they can get the bonus points.

I guess I can see the first case, but don't think there are really all that many people in that situation. But I don't see droves of people flocking to Marriott to book multiple stays, canceling their Hilton/Hyatt/Starwood reservations in order to get a measly 10K points. Not that 10K points are anything to sneeze at (particularly if you're getting them for free like most of our posters seem to be without any additional effort), but they're not so dramatic that people are going to switch loyalty for life.

Is the hotel business so competitive that those few guests they steal from the competition really do make up for all the extra points they're giving away to the rest of us?

Well for me anyway its enough to make me switch at least two stays that I have with Starwood to Marriott. I look at it as a bonus of 3333 points for every Marriott stay (as long as I can get in multiples of three of course) which to me really isn't bad at all, on top of the 500 platinum amenity bonus and the regular stay points too makes for a decent boost to my balance. So from my standpoint Marriott I think would deem this a success.

Same for me. I had my June - August booked up with Starwood. Now, Marriott is getting 9 more stays (in my case, 9 more nights) because of this promotion.

I moved most of my IC (Holiday Inn Express) stays over to Fairfield Inns so, for me at least, the promotion's objective was effective.

I have recently made Hyatt my #1 hotel, but will now move a few stays to make the 9 in 60 days. This will net Marriott about 2-4 EXTRA stays that Hyatt will lose.

Hyatt is just ending the "thousands of bonus miles" and Marriott will move to #1 for 9 stays now!

So...for me...this promo has brought additional stays to Marriott!

I made six unnecessary stays to get to 25 within the promo period in order to collect 50K points

I will say that in the end I paid an out of pocket total of < $7 b/c I paid for the three (two nighters) using premium pounds

I'm on the road every week and since I've requalified for MR Platinum and the magabonus is over, I have been staying at Starwoods since they have a few promos going on now (similar to Marriott's promo, actually).

This is enough to make me swap back over to Marriott, since I find their points system works better for me (I love the package awards). So this did get them some business from me they wouldn't have otherwise had.

I had 19 SPG stays through mid-May and 1 Marriott. With the new offers, I'm now at 10 MR nights, working my way back to PLT. I would have moved over eventually, but instead of topping off SPG for the year at 25, I'll look to pick them up later.

Wow--I stand corrected! I guess I am somewhat rare in the frequent traveler universe in that I choose my travel providers based on the service they provide and I look at frequent reward perks as simply icing on the cake. I guess most people are a lot more swayed by points, promos, etc. than I am, and than I thought!

I think they are VERY effective. During the last one I paid for 2 nights out of pocket to get the bonus.

Sadly I'm not traveling at all right now so I just can't see reaching 3 stays....no less 9. :(

They don't call us points sluts for nothing.:p

Add me to the list of people who will be moving from a non-Marriott stay (in my case a Hampton Inn) to a Marriott stay.

I already have a multi-stay trip arranged for July so from that point of view my schedule will remain unchanged. However, I have a couple of stays near the end of the promo so will arrange a low-cost mattress-run type of stay somewhere in there to gain another 10K points.

I do not see how having people break up a 3 night stay into 3 one nights benefits Marriott at all. More laundry, more paperwork, more hassle. Of course, the number of peopel who will do that for points must be pretty small.

For me, the promos are everything.

In general, I couldn't give a crap less about the "services and amenities" at a given property -- I'm just there doing a job and all I want is a place to sleep.

For the current promo, I'm actually cutting down my Choice stays (they have a promo going on, too) and arranging my schedule to dump a few into Marriott. Besides, I need a lot more nights for my MR plat status, so I might as well get some extra points for it.

When they have no promos going, I wind up at a Motel 6 or an Econolodge or whatever -- after all, I'm footing the bill.