But I know Marriott has done things in this past year that have upset you.

Sophiegirl please try to find sympathy for those of us here are feeling betrayed and are angry because of this.

Let me put it this way.
I bought a new Ford in 2006.The reason I chose this car was that I knew it would last me quite a few years and it fit my needs.And Ford was offering 0% down and 0% financing for the purchase.
I make my car payments faithfully on time every month and usually pay a little bit more than what is due.
Ford actually still owns the car.
Then one day three years after my purchase I get a letter thanking me for being a loyal Ford customer for many years and that my contract is being "enhanced"and my contract will now carry a 30%apr!
I have fulfilled my end of the bargain in every way,never missed a payment nor was I ever late with a payment.
The enhancement is that I can trade in my car at current market value for 90 days with no penalty.Of course it is now a used car and may be worth a lot less than what I still owe on the car.
And all the new Fords now carry a higher price tag-as well as a big interest rate.

Of course I could go over to Honda or Gm-but that will do nothing to make me less angry at Ford for what they did.

Of course the Marriot program rot has a lot less impact on those that are reimbursed or can expense their lodging costs.Those of us who pay for the majority of our stays out of our own pocket will feel the rot much more.

If Marriott had come out and said that it was devaluing the program, I think that many of us would have understood. It's tough economic times for all compaines - and we're all making changes to strengthen our corporations. The difference here is that Marriott is adamatly denying that these changes have anything to do with money. They are steadfast in their statements that this is a better program that has been enahnced. This is the point that many of us are arguing. If they are telling the truth, then there is still time to listen to customers and make additional changes. If they want to really incorporate enhancements, there is still time to listen to customers.

Want proof, read their enhacement announcement:
http://sites.google.com/site/makemar...n-announcement

Read their response about changes:

http://sites.google.com/site/makemar...-his-own-words

+1

That's exactly why most of us are upset. I would say a majority are upset that MR comes out saying they have come up with "enhancements" for MR while sneaking in point increases in the fine print. If you need to increase the point redemption rate due to financial reasons (which you explain): fine. But don't sneak it through and then still claim its an "enhancement" when you get called out on it.

As another topic, I really don't understand the point increases in the first place. The economy is tanking and MR is increasing point redemption? I don't see why that is necessary when points are being earned at the same rate "pre-change" except for the added 20% PLT bonus. I would expect room prices to be lower than last year due to the softening economy. Less demand + same supply = lower prices.

Let's not forget that the hotels have the ability to limit the rooms available for redemption (no matter what the new system is). Marriott is only going to give a room to someone on points if they don't think they are going to get revenue for it. There is no loss of revenue then for giving a room away when you weren't going to get revenue for it in the first place.

What it seems to me is that IMO corporate realizes they have a huge MR point liability on their balance sheet and wants to lower it as best they can by increasing the redemption requirements. That or they expect more redemptions in the near future with the economy and want to "stick it to us."

A response posted on TUG from MVCI

I wrote to MVCI to tell them about my displeasure with the new point structure for rewards. This is the response I received back. It really tows the company line.

************************************************** **
"Thank you for contacting Marriott Vacation Club International.

We appreciate your taking the time to share with us your thoughts regarding the changes that were made in the Marriott Rewards® program.

Many of the enhancements made to the program were done so based on the suggestions and feedback provided by our members and owners. Changes were made so that we could offer more flexibility by eliminating blackout dates, having a larger number of redemption options, eliminating StayAnytime Rewards, creating a premier tier of select hotels, and having an increased value in the use of your Marriott Rewards® points.

After conducting extensive research and speaking with several thousand Marriott Rewards members, Marriott found that most of the members in the Marriott Rewards program expressed that the fact that there would no longer be blackout dates far outweighs the increase in Marriott Rewards point prices.

Although the 7 night Category 7 award (the highest point value under the current Marriott Rewards schedule) is going up by 40% (150,000 to 210,000 points), approximately 70% of the awards are staying at the same point value or decreasing slightly, and the average point increase is only 5% when weighted on how owners redeem points.

Of the members who told us they didn't like the point increases, these members informed us that they liked not having blackout dates, having more award availability, platinum bonus increase and having the 5th night free in total much more than they disliked the point increase.

About 10% of our awards historically have been Stay Anytime awards, while only 2% of our awards are for 7 nights. Most Marriott Rewards members were more concerned about having the peace of mind in knowing that the dates they wanted to reserve would not be blacked out, than they were about the number of Marriott Rewards points they would need to redeem.

Marriott strives to help you make the most of all your vacation opportunities and create a lifetime of vacation memories. If you have any further questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us via the e-mail address listed below or via our website at www.My-VacationClub.com.

Best regards,

Jim M.
Correspondence Counselor
Marriott Vacation Club International
[email protected]"
*******************************************

Oh Bull Crud-stop lying to us already!
 

"Many of the enhancements made to the program were done so based on the suggestions and feedback provided by our members and owners. Changes were made so that we could offer more flexibility by eliminating blackout dates, having a larger number of redemption options, eliminating StayAnytime Rewards, creating a premier tier of select hotels, and having an increased value in the use of your Marriott Rewards® points."

I for one would love to see how the suits at MI/MR spun this to fit their already predetermined needs.

"After conducting extensive research and speaking with several thousand Marriott Rewards members, Marriott found that most of the members in the Marriott Rewards program expressed that the fact that there would no longer be blackout dates far outweighs the increase in Marriott Rewards point prices."

But that will not be the case-it has already been announced that properties WILL be allowed to excempt and limit certain dates.
And the convenient work around is to limit"standard rooms"in your room inventory.

Marriott Rewards/Marriott International stop trying to spin this for anything better than program rot.The use of the term enhancement is insulting.Stop it.
Shame. Shame. Shame.

the real car analogy is the purchase price, not the APR.

lets say you have been saving for a lexus starting in 2005 (purchase price $50K) putting money into an account. when it come time to buy the car in 2008, the lexus is no longer $50K, but now $60K so you are $10K short. Is that Lexus' fault that the price is no longer the same? do you demand that they lower the price to what it was in 2005?

Changing the APR would be adjusting an existing contract. I dont think that there is any implied contract here as the "price" goes up and you havent made the rez

most of the people here are big travelers and know the history of airline and hotel programs - all the redemptions change every few years. If you know that the "big" trip is 5 years out you know you wont make it

I would have preferred for Marriott to say:

Because of inflation, rising costs, whatever, we are going to have to raise points required for redemption across the board. Everything will be increased by 10%, even 15-20% if necessary.

I don't like the fact that they took away the best rewards (7 night certificates, Euro Hoppers & travel packages with the 7 night advantage) and the sliding scale for redemption.

With the current program, you received a break in the nightly rate if you increased the nights you stayed. Now you pay the same price for 1-4 nights, with no breaks until you hit 5 or 10.

I also find it hard to believe that only 2% of the awards were for 7 nights. That's why everybody seems to be saving their points.

I have a hard time believing that 70% of the awards are staying at the same point value or decreasing slightly. That doesn't match the numbers I've been looking at.

I tend to agree with the bigguy on this issue. Marriott is really putting the spin on this. But in reality, their numbers, while sliced and diced to their benefit, may well be true. How many people actually save up enough points for a 7 night award (remember the number of non-FTers is much, much larger than those of us here)? Plus, Marriott does have a lot of other non-night awards as well. Most here pay a little more attention to the best uses of points and are able to acquire larger sums of points. Due to that, the ratio of 7 night awards per other awards may be a much higher number than for the unwashed masses.

Also, as for the 70% reduction number, remember that even with the increased points, they are still less than any of the "Stay Anytime" awards currently offered. Thats half your hotel "night" awards right there (that means a savings on 50% of your night awards alone.) Granted those are going away, but Marriott is probably using those "numbers" to put a lipstick spin on their program.

This is not accurate as we are experiencing 2 different and simultaneous devaluation processes here: first the increase shown in the MR schedule and also the more subtle process due to category creep that an uncertain number of properties will experience (as it happened last year with more than 500 hotels). So, the 7 night Cat. 7 award went up a 40% only if such hotel remains at cat.7 but a 60% if it becomes a Cat. 8 property. Be aware that 14 out of 24 hotels currently cat. 7 will be upgraded to cat. 8 so the 60% increase applies to 58% of the properties. Outrageous.

I trust that 70% of the awards are staying at the same point value but they are certainly those which are foolish and inefficient ways to burn points. Any experienced member knows that, out of the whole MR catalogue, only hotel stays and travel packages are reasonable choices. The only exception being stays at MVCI which curiously remain at same point levels... because owners like me keep trading in our weeks for the same miserable fixed amount points and Marriott refuses to adjust our revenue even though they sell our nights at higher prices each year. So Marriott pays peanuts for our nights and plays generous with other members on our dime.

Yes, but what upset me was being unable to secure a room on points - so can't really use that as an example. ;)

AND -

I have every sympathy for those who are feeling betrayed, which is why I stated..."if it doesn't work for you, it is understandable that you would want to go elsewhere".

But bigguy - is it not reciprocal? There are multiple posts which suggest those of us not immediately abandoning Marriott are "blindly loyal", or worse, too stupid to understand alternative programs.

If I am to have sympathy (through the understanding of) your position - shouldn't the same courtesy be extended to those of us who find the change less dramatic?

So I sent off an email to Marriott Rewards letting them know about my extreme displeasure with the way the news of the “enhancements” was delivered to Marriott’s best customers and in return I received the same tired canned response I’ve seen posted by others alluding to the “thousands of elites” that they polled to help them come up with the changes and of course none of it addressed my real complaint of how the message is being packaged.

I really hope the message gets back to Ed French that due to his inability to deliver bad news in an honest and forthright manner he’s done irreparable damage to his and Marriott’s credibility with many of their best customers, and that it would be in his best interest to change tact and start addressing us as if we weren’t a bunch of idiots that can’t run the numbers for ourselves.

Had he just came out and said “here are the changes that we feel are necessary to remain profitable in these tough economic times” I wouldn’t have been happy about the changes but I also wouldn’t have such utter contempt for him and Marriott now that I’ve changed from someone that’s gone out of his way to praise Marriott and bring them new customers and business to someone that intends to take every opportunity presented to badmouth Marriott to anyone and everyone that will listen.

American Airlines has also recently made many changes to their incentive programs as well as introduced many new fees but they at least had enough respect for their customers to be honest about the changes and why they felt they were necessary to remain profitable. While no one is happy about the changes most of us AA elites understand the changes and want to continue to see AA remain profitable and will continue to do business with them, but then again AA didn’t choose to insult its customers probably thinking that would be bad for business…

Anyway, I’ve already cost Marriott more money through changing venues for a couple of medium size events next year than they’ll ever come close to taking away from me through these changes, and all because of some really stupid spin Ed French keeps perpetuating even after being called out on it.

Well played, Ed.

what do you want marriott to say - we are devaluing the program? No company in their right mind would that out since that would be the headline in every paper

everyone knows that the airline industry is in the tank. they are probably the only ones that could say "we are doing this or else - no blood left in the body". hotel chains are not in that situation and that would not be believable

for some people the marriott changes are better. for golds, they just dont accumulate enough miles (and they know it, or should) to spend a week in Paris in their lifetime. they probably spend the points on weekends, short trips etc - all domestic. rewards that maximize short stays are probably better for them.

i have a tendency to believe the numbers that marriott gave since i tend to go on shorter trips - 5 nights - obviously just me. It is evident that the new marriott will make you pay for the privilidge of staying in london, paris or rome since everyone wants to go their for free. nothing wrong with that IMHO.

again - if you like the chain, it fits your travel habits, budget and locations and can use the points every two or three years - then stay at marriott. saving for 5 years the necessary points for a big trip - you will be disapointed

Business Lost
 

Any thoughts as to how much business/money Marriott has lost since the announcement? I know that they have lost all of mine.

How much business will Marriott lose from the "thousands of elites" (the ones that supposedly approved the "enhancements") when they discover that their desired travel days are unavailable (you know, the "blackout" workaround)? After all, thats what they wanted right? The opportunity to book a standard room on any given day?

Since the beginning of October, I've done exactly 1 night at a Marriott: a Fairfield Inn in Shreveport at $89.

Also since the beginning of October, I've done 14 nights at the Sheraton NY Hotel & Towers at $389. That's $5,446 that Marriott lost. I'll be on a project here at least through next summer spending about that much each month. Way to go Marriott!

Ahh yes, but usually when you put your money in the bank you get INTEREST! So you get out also more than you put in... which could be even more that what a car will cost in 5 years. MR points represent money we already paid to Marriott. Not only we do not get any interest, we get less than we put in. So your example is wrong. And I do not even start here to compare this with various investments, yes can be risky and you get less than you put in but can be good and yield two cars after 5 years...!

MR simply took away the money and gives us now less for it. At the time they got the money, it had a high value (measure it as you wish, Gold price, Oil price, anything) so I expect to get at least the same value, if not getting the interest on my points!

TL