Because this thread is at least half Cliff Claven-esque facts about measurement systems and other arcania, I offer the following:

A)As the computer designations for Premier and Premier Executive are 2P and 1P respectively, I suspect that UA simply decided to use two characters for the status designator. *edited to add: beat me by a minute*

B) Bullion is graded on a thousandths of purity scale with 1.000 being absolutely pure and .999 plus being a common standard. Gold used in jewelry is commonly measure in karats, which is a 24th of the whole, with 10 karat being 10/24 gold and 24 karat (not carat) being pure gold. My sterling silver money clip from Tiffany's, however, is marked .925. Go figure.

[This message has been edited by Mikey likes it (edited 03-06-2002).]

Mikey --

I'm in agreement with Lisa on this one. In addition, that her boss did not know that she would get the points or be eligible for a bonus for holding such a meeting is not her fault, as the bonus is open and above-board, not a secret kickback scheme:

"Earn up to 100,000 Bonus Points with your next Meeting or Event!


From October 1, 2001 through March 31, 2002*, hold a meeting at any Marriott Hotels, Resorts & Suites, Renaissance Hotels, Resorts & Suites or Marriott Conference Centers locations, and we'll double your Marriott Rewards point earnings. You could earn up to 100,000 points per event!

What can you get for 100,000 reward points? 35,000 frequent flyer miles, free hotels stays, and more -- search for your options by clicking on "Search Rewards By Point Level".

* Meeting or event must be held by March 31, 2002."


http://www.marriottrewards.com/mes/m...OfferCode=W037

Seems to me that Mikey is just sour because he didn't get what he wanted. To go to management to try and get the travel arranger in trouble speaks VOLUMES about the kind of person that he is. It seems as though Mikey is sour because he realizes that he's not entitled to miles/points and since the arranger was able to benefit in some way that really bugs him. I think that any arrangements that the arranger makes independent of what the company is due are that persons business and nobody elses, as long as the company permits one to accept and accrue points/miles. Hey Mikey - Get a life - find something more to do than torture this poor travel arranger.

One other thing.... most companies that have their own "in house travel" departments keep the commissions. The travel company is generally compensated by a flat fee that is negotiated with their client. I have years of background in this side of the industry. There is a very big chance that Mikey's company was able to use that $40M commission (which is EXTREMELY, RIDICULOUSLY high by anyones standards on a $180M bill) to offset some of the costs of the meeting.

At one of my (many) former employers the commission recorded by the captive inhouse agency was allocated back to the business units based on their travel spending -- after their costs were covered. The $40,000 (avoiding the use of k or m) commission might have been the total commission on the event, including airfares for the attendees.

"He said no wedding then, they immediately offered him the points at the normal rate --the overall wedding bill for the hotel was about $35000). RUles are meant to be broken. "

>>> Yes, when you pay that much to a hotel, I think you are entitled to some miles, and then some.

I agree with Mikey, nice name by the way http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif,
that he should have had the points for his room and expenses only...

Marriott could have just customer serviced him the points. They won't go broke doing it, ugh.

When a former company had an annual meeting, while they paid, I was able to receive all the Hilton points, plus double dipping http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif, for my room and expenses. It helped, what can I say? I would prefer something like that. Why should one person pig all the points? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif



------------------
Michael
AA PLT,1 MLN Miles+
Hilton Gold
Sheraton Gold
Marriot Silver

Shouldn't that be K=thousand and M=million?

Thanks, AS Flyer for your contribution to this thread.

Had you read the posts above, and thought for thirty seconds, you *might* have actually added value to this discourse.

XXOO.

Mike

Having worked with both medical and finance terminology, I find most people use the “k” symbol to express a thousand units – whether gram weights, dollars, miles or other. For instance, 10kg would mean ten kilograms. $100k would mean one hundred thousand dollars. When expressing millions, I typically see the double capital “M”.. so $100MM would mean one hundred million dollars. I have certainly seen the single, usually lower case, “m” used as an indicator for “thousands”, but I find it confusing and it seems to be in disfavor these days.

From around the internet comes the following comments on this lofty subject http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/rolleyes.gif

K
an informal abbreviation for one thousand used in expressions where the unit is understood, such as "10K run" (10 kilometers) or "700K disk" (700 kilobytes or kibibytes). Note that "K" is also the symbol for the kelvin. Also note that the symbol for the metric prefix kilo- (1000) is actually k-, not K-.

M [1]
informal abbreviation for million in expressions where the base unit is understood, as in "500M hard drive" (500 megabytes or mebibytes). In chemistry, M is the symbol for "molar".

M [2]
the Roman numeral 1000, sometimes used in symbols to indicate a thousand, as in Mcf, a traditional symbol for 1000 cubic feet. Given the widespread use of M to mean one million, this older use of M to mean 1000 is very confusing and should be scrapped.

MM
an abbreviation for one million, seen in units such as those listed below. The abbreviation is meant to indicate one thousand thousand, M being the Roman numeral 1000. However, MM actually means 2000, not one million, in Roman numeration.

MMb, MMbo
symbols for one million barrels of oil
MM Btu
traditional symbol for one million Btu, a unit used widely in the energy industry.

********
Julian Wiseman also addressed this topic in his book "Pricing Money: A Beginner's Guide to Money, Bonds, Futures and Swaps". He writes:
... , it is worth mentioning other possible sources of ambiguity in the writing of money. One might think that '$100m' means one hundred million dollars. But the 'm' is ambiguous. In English 'm' means a million, in French it is the abbreviation for 'mille', meaning a thousand (though the abbreviation is more usually written in uppercase). A French speaker would write one hundred million as 100MM, and could well read 100m as one hundred thousand.

... Money amounts should be written unambiguously: USD 100 million and USD 100,000,000 are both clear. Unless the context is clear and not legally binding, readers are advised to avoid use of the suffix 'm'.

The word 'billion' used to be ambiguous. In American English a billion is a thousand million; in old British English it used to mean a million million and it still does in some other languages. But in English the Americans have won: a billion is always a thousand million, and a trillion is always a million million. Because the words 'million' and 'billion' sound so similar, in spoken English the word 'yard' (a contraction of 'milliard') is often used as a synonym for a thousand million.


[This message has been edited by svpii (edited 03-07-2002).]

Well, that ought to end this discussion. It's there in black and white.

Now, look at it from the hotel perspective. Who is more important to them? You, who represents one room per night to them? Or the meeting planner, who brings dozens, if not hundreds of room nights every time she books a meeting?

And that's just the room nights. You might do room service or have a drink at the hotel bar. You don't do banquets or snack breaks or other things.

Who do you think they really want to keep happy? Who generates more revenue for them?

Keep in mind that these entities are businesses, who are there to make money. So if it comes down to it, they'll accept the fact that you're pissed off if they can get a meeting planner to pick up 100 room nights and pay for catering, AV, and so on.

I have had a meeting planner take both my points and my suite that I was upgraded to.

I no longer work there (for a variety of reasons- the far holier than thou attitude of management being one)

As a person who plans meetings I personally like the system. Marriott does a outstanding job of wooing planners with all kinds of benefits. At no time is the my company put in a worse situation because of decisions made by the planner. Rates are always favourable, on site events good and F&B plentiful.

Granted the individual attendee did not get the points but the individual attendee did not make the decision of where to stay which is what loyalty programs are all about. The planner did.

The key to getting your points (at the risk of pissing off your planner) is to demand you not be on the master bill and pay for the room yourself. You also run the risk of not being reimbursed!

While I can symphatize with Mike, IMHO that meeting planner did nothing fraudulent or unethical, as she did not "steal" anybody's points.

There are two separate issues here:

1) Meeting Planner receiving bonus points;

2) No points credited to Mike and others in a similar situation.

These two issues are not necessarily related.

The only reason Mike did not get his points was because his room was master billed, and according to Starwood's rules (see my post on the first page of this thread), master billed rooms are not eligible to earn points. No matter whether that meeting planner got her bonus points, none of those staying at master billed rooms would've gotten their points anyway.

If, on the other hand, all the guests were paying for their rooms themselves, they all would've received the points. And the meeting planner would've still received her bonus points (all 50,000 of those)!

SDIX --

You may be interested in the following, as well as any other person who can plan a meeting at a Rennaissance Hotel:

Renaissance Offers Free Kodak EasyShare Digital Camera And Marriott Rewards(R) Bonus Points




Choose From 120 Hotels Worldwide

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2002 for stays through March 31, 2003 qualify the event planner for the
complimentary camera and camera dock, retailing for $379.99.
Renaissance Hotels, Resorts and Suites was named one of the nation's best
hotel brands in 2001 by a leading consumer report publication. Renaissance is
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For more information on the KODAK EasyShare Digital Camera offer visit
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Bonus Point Program promotion, call 1-800-831-4004 or visit the meeting
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One resort, which knows I'm comparing dates and rates at several properties for a group, offered me triple points today.