cln

as well as bali with an active vulcano xD

boeingguy1

One comment on the NYC Chart - I understand the need to standardize the "flagship" hotels, but I do wonder if the people that made these charts ever walked into the Sheraton Times Square... certainly not worth the +14K jump in 1 night redemption. Does anyone know if they are planning improvements to the hotel that would justify such a jump in points?

bgriff

I don't know what their logic was, but at certain points in the past the Sheraton NY has been an SPG Cat 6 property, going for 20K SPG points a night. IIRC it only recently came back down to Cat 5. So perhaps in terms of room rates it really fell between those two points on the SPG chart, which is exactly where the new 50K level falls. For any of these charts, the room rates the hotel is actually achieving is more important than any subjective evaluation of "how the hotel looks" or similar.

We know that the old SPG system was primarily or entirely based on average room rate, so apparently despite its limitations that Sheraton does achieve high enough room rates to have a correspondingly high price. But just like most people would never have chosen the Sheraton when both it and a number of nicer NYC hotels were all the same price in SPG Cat 6, most people probably would opt for one of the Westins at the 50K price level in this new scheme.

TravelinSperry

I recall reading somewhere that this property was one of the most redeemed properties for award nights. That may be one reason they increased... to allow more room for paid stays. Although from what I understand, the way properties were paid for award nights in the past the difference wasn't much. Not sure how it's done under Marriott.

UKTraveller4Fun

From my various trips to Bali the Volcano really hasn't really reduces tourism to Bali, the room rates are as high as eve and keep going up generally so I don't see why they would be reduced in Cat.

PHLGovFlyer

There's definitely some cherry picking happening in terms of the locations presented (e.g. Bali and PR have seen significant reductions in tourism). IMO people should withhold judgment about potential devaluation until after the points costs of all properties are revealed. In my case show me the 2019 points costs for London, Hawaii, Northern Europe, South Florida, the rest of the Caribbean, Thailand, and then I'll know the real impact of category changes as it impacts my stay patterns.

hockeyinsider

Terrorism in Indonesia? Relatively low cash rates?

hockeyinsider

And I don't even know if the Puerto Rico Renaissance, Marriott and Ritz-Carlton properties used in the example are even open for booking. I know the Ritz-Carlton is closed. A colleague went to San Juan for business and both the Renaissance and Marriott were fully booked by FEMA workers, construction workers and the like.

cln

i think u havent been there recently, last month the island was almost empty

UKTraveller4Fun

Was there 5 weeks ago and St Regis was packed as was the W!

MSPeconomist

What happened to the W downtown that was vaguely close to Wall Street and the WTC Memorial? I don't see it on the NYC list? It's normally less IME that W Union Square and the other W.

One possible explanation to keep in mind when discussing category changes is that in the past, SPG and Marriott used very different criteria to assign hotels to categories:

Starwood based the category on the hotel's projected average revenue rate per room (whatever this means--I once tried to ask whether the hotel can just make up some number to which they aspire and not be required to justify how the number was determined, and I don't know whether it was supposed to be just the standard rooms, which would make some sense when suites are double and some hotels have much greater fractions of suites than others do) for the coming year.

Marriott always used demand for award nights during the preceding year.

Jimgotkp

Bali's Tourism Office has statistics on the # of people who came to the island but only up to Feb 2018. Statistics - Dinas Pariwisata

drmish1

What will happen to the “all suite” SPG properties, like W / StR Maldives, from Aug 1st ?

EuropeanPete

We don't appear to know as yet...

gardener

As a long term Marriott customer I can say unequivocally that that is exactly how Marriott sets award categories. For instance, a Courtyard in a business town could be $250 a night but Cat 2 or 3 - because no one redeems points there. A Fairfield Inn in Gatlinburg Tennessee could be $100 a night off season but Cat 6 because it is a popular award destination.

This is similar to how Vegas operates a sports book - they set the "line" to get equal betting on both sides.