What I am curious is the thought that there will be a status above Life time PLT. I have 4000 nights sooooo we will all know on Monday

Oh I know. And they want you as an AMB under the current terms of the program, and you are bringing a lot of business to them in return.

My point was that there's no natural order which says that 100 nights should get you something, Things change, and a threshold of 100 nights is just as arbitrary as any other number, and as arbitrary as a particular spend requirement. Marriwood knows how many people would qualify under various different criteria, including the very possibility that changing the criteria would exclude some people and drive them away.

And still, they have a certain direction they want to take the program in. We might be part of that vision, or not. And as customers, we say yes, or no.

I'll go out on a limb and say that you'll get the highest LT status that's offered. I'm not sure we'll get detailed enough information on LT status programs on Monday.

I'm hoping for some scheme that will take our achievements from the two programs and combine them with appropriate conversions to determine where we sit on the spectrum of the new program. If all they do is say all Golds are now Golds, someone's been wasting a lot of time bringing out the new program.

On Monday we will know how the beast gonna kill the beauty. It is gonna be ugly, for sure. I hope that William and his team(lurkers) will continue to work after the new program has launched.

you can count on that !!

I am hopeful we all get grandfathered in these days one can not take anything for granted. we the original members help build this !!

it seems kind of bizarre that $20k spend would make a lot of plt100 members not qualify. There arent THAT many $100/night SPG properties (let alone sub $100/night). Last time I saw, my average nightly rate was around $250/night and thats with plenty of cheap (some even <$100) rooms in orlando in the mix...

If you look further from Orlando towards Asia and Europe, there are plenty of sub 100usd/per night rooms. Alone 100 nights and 20k usd would require at least 200usd per room spent without taxes.

Plus if you have solid corporate or organizational rates, rooms are often sub 200.

Have you traveled outside the major markets? Ohio? Michigan? Colorado? Texas?

Have you looked at the US dollar exchange impact of foreign travel in, say, Canada? South Korea? Spain? Argentina? Malaysia? Australia? Mexico?

1) Not all Starwood Ambassador guests travel in NYC, Los Angeles, London, D.C., Boston, Paris or Tokyo.

2) Not all Starwood Ambassador guests spend most of their travel in the U.S. on which the spend threshold currency is based.

3) There are many hotels even within the U.S. that are sub-US$100 per night before tax. Even more that are sub-US$200 per night before tax. Even more that are sub-US$200 per night before tax that are the result of corporate contracts.

Maybe Stariott's intent is to reduce/limit the impact of point redemption nights from earning Ambassador status. I frankly don't know a single Ambassador guest (I know several) who don't use their points for at least a few nights per year as part of the 100 nights they stay with Starwood. This basically means that if an Ambassador guest even spends one night let alone one week (which would be more realistic) on a redemption stay, that USD200 average before tax spend threshold would go up or it simply means that 100 nights (which is a little over 1/4th of the year) spent in a hotel room isn't enough to ever qualify for Ambassador status.

i really hope so too....

last time i checked there is a whole world outside usa where there are tons & tons of $100 a night properties....& i'm talking about good hotels....had a stay at a st. regis last month for under $140 & have another stay at a luxury collection property coming up that's a little over $100 a night....i stay at decent properties like st. regis, luxury collection & high end sheratons but i can't remember the last time i paid $250 a night....

In fact, there is a whole world outside major U.S. downtown markets! I don't want to belabor the point so please forgive me but I did a check of a not insignificant U.S. market, Atlanta, on a typical weeknight and while there are 6 options that are USD200+, there are also 7 that are below USD200 with several choices that are barely above USD100 (and that includes the Sheraton Atlanta and the Westin Atlanta Airport). For a weekend night, the number of properties with rates above USD200 are even tougher to find with 11 of the properties falling below (most well below) USD200 per night and only 2 managing to justify rates above USD200. In fact, there are two new properties opening in the Metro Atlanta area within the next year, one is an aLoft and the other a Four Points, both to be located in suburban areas -- properties that are highly unlikely to be able to justify rates anywhere near, let alone above, USD200 per night. With such an unrealistic spend requirement, what Starriott would be, in fact, doing is shutting out a huge segment of their own properties which cannot justify anywhere near the rates a USD20,000 per year spend would require. And what happens when the next economic downturn happens?

I am not against a spend requirement if it is realistic and recognizes real world conditions and if it allows alternatives to achievement.

Would Starriott really think that corporate travel managers would allow employees, even executives, to select the most expensive properties in a market to satisfy unrealistic spend requirements?

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