UA-NYC

Credit card was 15 nights a year, plus it seems like many members found a way to ring up an add'l 10-15 nights per year without too much trouble. That has been going on a long time. Plus rollover which is newer (I have tried to find the start date but haven't had much success). Meeting rooms probably less practiced but that seems to be just about the easiest way possible to rack up 10 nights at a time.

I have yet to see any claimed massive numbers of rooms gained via multiple room booking - feel free to correct me otherwise. The bhrubin's of the world who book large blocks I'm guessing aren't that many. It also defies logic - who are all these heavy business travelers who are booking multiple rooms frequently on all their trips.

I personally have attested to earning 50 that way over 8 years / 800 nights...which is far short of what I could have earned via CC.

So let's see your POV if you don't agree.

Not making any claim of value of the respective non-BiB nights (though I have a hard time believing the pennies on the dollar they may get from CC usage is more profitable than actual room revenue). I'm calling out this equivalency of "both sides could earn non-BiB nights, ergo, it is the same".

Let's be real - it was easier on Marriott.

CJKatl

Your continued repeating that phrase does not make it true, but you are missing the point. Easy does not matter. It's a marketing program designed to bring more profit to the business. If the company wanted to drive profitable cc business to the company so they used that as part of their LT qualification criteria then why should it not be counted?

Why should Marriott care if a customer from whom they get $X profit from a year has it harder than a customer from whom they get $2X profit a year because they use a cc? Should they reward the lower profit customer more or the higher profit customer more? Should they ignore the higher profit customer because the profit Marriott makes from that customer comes from cc? Or, if ccs are easy high profits for little effort should they encourage and reward cc use?

Marriott is not a charity, it is a business looking to make profit. How easy or hard it is for the customer means little to how much cash came in and how to get more cash into the company in the future. Marriott does not just sell rooms, they also sell cc and both segments are important. Why would anyone think the cc profit are useless to the company and those customers should not be encouraged and rewarded?

Canada101

100% agree.

This entire discussion about which Plat status is bigger, tougher, badder, whatever is crazy. Achieving LTP status through MR or SPG was no easy feat. It required a lot of effort and a lot of spend. Period. The reasons why MR had rules which allowed some CC spend to count for nights or why SPG allowed multiple room stays to receive Elite credit was for one simple, common reason. The rules were designed to be maximize profitability. Period. It wasn't about making it harder. Heck, it wasn't even about giving customers freebies. It was about creating programs that encouraged loyalty which would contribute to their bottom line. Every aspect of these loyalty programs is designed to enhance profit. From the reward charts to the quarterly bonuses to the Ambassadors. Everything.

Why are credit card affiliations so important to hotel chains and airlines? Because they're very profitable. Why does Marriott offer higher points accrual when the affiliated credit card is used? Because when customers do so it helps Marriott's bottom line.

CJKatl

There is an important secondary reason, too, as we saw with DL. Being an important strategic partner with a deep pockets financial institution kept DL from going out of business. When Leo Mullin destroyed DL and spun it into bankruptcy, the only reason they got money to keep operating was because their cc was so important to Amex that Amex had little choice but to creatively fund the airline. The more important Marriott is to Chase the less chance Chase will let them go under if Marriott hits a downturn.

Canada101

Absolutely. In addition to the purchase of points, Chase and Amex both pay for the privilege of being affiliated with Starriott. Ultimately, these credit cards are cash cows for airlines and hotel chains because so many of us use them so religiously.

X-ON

Sure I agree that a CC affiliation can be a profit center for a hotel company. What I personally is quite puzzled over is why MAR decided to associate the usage of a CC product to the lifetime activity. You would think that the additional accumulation of points alone or a complimenary annual tier would suffice to incentivize usage of the card.

CJKatl

We don't know the data so we cannot say what would have gotten people to use the card, but you have to assume the people who made the decision evaluated the data and thought profits could be maximized by incentivizing the way they did. Again, there seems to be a misunderstanding about how many nights most Marriott members got through ccs just as many MR customers may overestimate the number of three-nights-in-one credits SPG people banked.

Annual tier would not have gotten people already staying many nights to get the card. Who needs what they already qualify for? And pointswise there are other cards out there that do much better so just looking at points most people would choose the Sapphire card or a 5% back Discover over the Marriott card.

X-ON

Ok , fair enough, we don't know. Do we know if there any other LT program that is being utilized to incentivize the usage of a CC product? And I wonder if it will be in the new combined program.
If you are right that profits was to be maximized by this arrangment, I wonder why (to my limited knowledge) so few other LT programs utilize this. Further we should expect the new combined program have a similar arrangement?

fdem

I think star riot forgot that in Europe there are no equivalent cc giving stay credit! Both need realise (especially Marriott that there is life beyond American borders)

Pitero

Absolutely agree!

CJKatl

Delta uses its card heavily in its annual elite qualification and some cards offer both initial and annual miles towards qualification and Million Miler status (MQM). Delta pretty much wrote the book on airlines offering ccs and has historically been the most popular of the sponsored cards.

I have not followed the new Marriott card offers but I think some of the cards will now offer a one-time 15 nights credit and others will continue to offer anniversary nights but I really do not know.

mnvl

I agree - at the very least they should look at a combination of SPG and MR days and points - I have 1032 lifetime nights with SPG and 1632 nights with MR but only 840K points...would definitely focus my stays on Hilton if the transition to the new Lifetime Platinum doesn't go well

Canada101

But we don't really know, do we? Ultimately, Marriott makes these decisions based on how they can best profit from their various activities and if incentivizing consumers to use an MR-affiliated card by giving them status results in X dollars, then I'm pretty sure Marriott knows what they need to do. They're certainly not creating these incentives to be nice to consumers or doing so at a financial loss. The calculation that they are making is "earn points through your X cc towards a free hotel stay" equals net positive contribution to the bottom line.

phltraveler

The new Marriott card and the old one retain the terms that 15 elite nights will be credited on or before March 1st the account is open. Same terms on both the old SPG & SPG business Amex as well as the new one. All cards have terms for this stipulating that you will only get 15 nights benefit from credit cards total, even if you have more than one (e.g. if you have Marriott Plat Premier Visa, SPG Amex, you'll get 15 nights each year, not 15 + 15 = 30).

So on the new lifetime statuses, versus old MR Lifetime qualification criteria.
Pro: Points requirement was eliminated. Makes it easier to make lifetime with cheaper stays.
Pro/Con: All nights requirements were reduced against the "metal" (gold to gold, plat to plat); however, new Lifetime Plat is basically the old Lifetime Gold (and requires 600 nights instead of 500 nights), so they really effectively increased.
Con: All lifetime statuses now require a certain number of years at that status or higher. Gold is not that hard at 25 nights, especially with the 15 credit card nights. Plat is harder (50 nights per year to qualify, must hit plat for 10 years).
Con: Rollover nights are gone, making it harder to hit the night totals.
Con: New MR Premier Plus visa card drops the extra elite qualifying night for every $3,000 moved across the card. I predict they will stop offering the prior visa once the new one is available, and push people on an upgrade offer to the newer card (better free night certificate annually and probably a points offer too).

Prediction: I can't see Rewarding events surviving in its current form (10 elite qualifying nights for every day you book a meeting at many properties) given the above. For current status in the pre-merger program, you could rack up 80 nights (MR Plat) with 8 $100 meetings, or $800 for all 80 nights - but as far as attaining lifetime status, you'd get kneecapped on the points requirements (Meetings only gave 3 points per dollar, if you bought the 750 nights required for Plat via 75 meetings @ $100 each, you'd have only 60,000 points [3 pts per dollar on meetings + 5 pts Marriot spend on card = 8pts/$ * $100 per meeting = 800 points per meeting, 800 points per meting * 75 meetings = 60,000 pts], putting you far short of the 2 million points required for the old lifetime platinum) without substantial other credit card spend or stay activity.

Now it's just nights + years at that status or higher. With the credit card nights ($95 annual fee for 15 nights a year), you could hit the new MR Plat (50 nights) with 4 meetings , or $500 or less - basically, for $495/yr, you can buy Platinum status each year. Some hotels don't care about no-shows for paying meeting room/booking in points, but even if they did all you have to do is show up with your laptop for an hour at each meeting and then leave. Plus, this basically means that people can minimally "buy up" to premier plat (not lifetime, but 75 nights in a given year) for the suite night awards and bonus points very cheaply. (Or, if you're the meeting organizer for your actual company, you'd just enjoy the nights on actual arranged meetings). Marriott may decide that the population of people "buying status" through Rewarding Events is minimal compared to actual meeting organizers who choose to book meetings for their employees (and then associated rooms for the employees attending) at Marriott hotels, but I think it would massively increase in popularity as a way to get current & buy towards lifetime status if maintained as-is.

If Rewarding events is eliminated, the credit card is still a huge incentive, as then you only need 10 actual stay nights a year to get gold, or 35 to get Plat. To build up 10 years at Plat for Lifetime Plat, the credit card helps dent the overall number of nights (assuming you kept the credit card for all ten years, it would drop the lifetime plat criteria from 600 nights to 450 nights), plus eases the qualification within a given year. The rest of the nights would have to be butt-in-bed.

MSPeconomist

Is there a typo in the second "Pro"? Do you mean "points" rather than "nights"? However, that would seem to make the first and second items the same.