FlyerTalkHandle

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dannybhoy

Yup, us non-Statesiders פְרָאיֵירִים are getting our baws toed in this deal. To be fair, we're prolly getting shafted by all the US hotel chains not just by SPG/Marriott.

RogerD408

William, yes, that is the case for the new program, but they also have said we can continue to earn credit under the original till 12/31. I see numbers flying all over the place and don't envy you guys having to sort it all out for us. I have always maintained my own spreadsheet of stays and credit to keep things in order and hope SPG & MR will keep track of separate activity as well as a combined. Good luck.

cln

That is very bad news. I have booked a couple of stays for end of the year travelling with family and friends...
Won't this even be honored for exisiting reservations ?
i think it is a bad move, i often travel with my employees and getting credit for the 2nd room was the decision maker for staying at spg hotels... If this benefit goes away i have two options:
i send my staff to a another hotel where i might even get cashback or other benefits and i stay at the spg/marriott property or we all gonna stay at other properties...

silentbob1974

Is there a definitive answer on this somewhere? I'd like to qualify for 2019 status under SPG rules at SPG properties only, does this mean a multiple-room stay in December 2018 (booked well before last week's announcement) will still get full stay/night credit under old SPG rules?

RogerD408

There is so much up in the air right now about the fine details of the programs. I doubt you will find anything that will say that if you don't merge your accounts (different than link) you will get legacy SPG credit, but it might come down later. Many of the CSRs will only be guessing. The notices so far have been saying you can continue earning according to the legacy programs, but they don't say what you have to do or not do to let that happen. If it was me, I'd keep checking the announcements to see if they address your situation but refrain from merging your accounts in August.

ac/elite

This is extremely bad news for me too and it doesn’t seem to make a lot of business sense. Last year I had around 120 nights, many of those earned with multiple rooms where I paid for my employees’ rooms. Starwood got revenue for 100+ room nights and I got my status. With the new rules, I likely would barely make 50 nights. However, I don’t need to make 50 nights as I’m LTP and there are no additional benefits for doing so. So, if there’s no likelihood of me getting any benefits beyond basic platinum as I won’t reach elevated status, I’ll now look at rates more closely and choose the 3.5-4 star hotel for all of us with the best rates and often those won’t be Starriott. Sure, I won’t get my platinum benefits when staying elsewhere, but I don’t really care about them when I’m on business with staff. I care about them when I’m on vacation, most often using points. So, I’ll continue to earn lots of points on my credit card, use them for vacation travel and Starriott will very likely lose over 75 paid nights from me. Way to disincentivize your customers!

kaizen7

US have 4000+ hotels
rest of the world combined maybe only have about 1000 hotels

So non US members needs more effort to reach 75 or even 100 nights
Marriott should give some extras for non US members ! (maybe extra free qualifying night! )

kaizen7

With multiple nights, I can reach 75+ easily might even reach 100 without having to resort to matress run
Without multiple night credit, I might barely reach 75.
I doubt I am willing to do matress run just for PLT75 benefit

Honestly, in case I wont reach 75, I will stop at 50 and spend the next 20 or so nights at different hotels

coolfish1103

I would hope they at least honor this for 2018 if they do take 3 room credits away in the future. You don't just change the program in the middle and tell people you honor older terms when you really don't. It's surprising they specifically mentioned 25 stays and not 3 room credits for 50 nights or even more when its almost always that there is more revenue for 50 nights (and not many do mattress runs for 3 nights, they just have a booking with 10-20 nights and leave it there).

canael

I would also hope they would at least honor it until the end of 2018... For me personally, this is clearly a huge loss. I do 75+ nights per year without business travel at high end properties and go out of my way to also book friends and family there. This brought a lot of additional business to them over the years. Now this incentive is clearly gone. This was the main reason to go with SPG instead of Hyatt, etc...

Sydfly

kaizen7

It definitely great if new program can have $ based qualification

escape4

There is a credit card in the UK, Canada, Japan, and UAE. Details are not worked out yet, but I would be surprised if you would not get the 15 night credit with those cards.

escape4

You are correct, I think your beef is not that Marriott won't count 2 nights/stays when you book 2 rooms, because actually Hilton does not either. The issue is that you cannot qualify based on spend only with Marriott but you can with Hilton. Only counting one night/stay for 2 rooms is quite standard - Starwood was the exception and was quite generous and now the benefit is gone.

I think the optimal strategy is to qualify at Marriott with lots of cheap nights, qualify at Hyatt with very few but expensive nights, and qualify at Hilton with the credit card.