GoPhils

Grasping at straws IMO. So would it not be a "loophole" if a $100 Rewarding Event got you 3 night credits instead of 10?

pinniped

How about a credit card that gets you 100% to top tier with zero stays, *and* pays you back a net-negative annual fee for carrying the card?

That's not a loophole, it's Hilton's big new product for 2018.

Marriott and Starwood both have comparatively tame credit card offers as far as granting status goes. The typical Marriott Plat using the MR Visa still has to do 55 or 56 actual room nights to get Platinum. Still more than an SPG Plat, and the Marriott Plat didn't have a stay-based shortcut option.

yeunganson

You can always book meetings in a hotel. The point I make is the use the "Rewarding Events" program is aim for medium large scale meetings and events. I have absolutely no problem of people booking meetings outside of the Rewarding Event program - like those small ones for points and no nights.

I absolutely agree trolls are not smart. At the end, you just have to state your position and opinions, believe they will have an impact and allow criticisms to roll off your shoulders.

pinniped

If this statement weren't false, Marriott would have simply placed a minimum spend (or some other minimum component) on the promotion.

You seem to think that Marriott isn't wholly and completely in control of their own promotion.

What continues to be amusing to me is that *you* are concerned about how *other people* are using the product when, in fact, it truly does not concern you. I don't think people who go into Starbucks and order small coffees should get points in the Starbucks program.* I think people should have to order medium coffees to get that, and it makes me mad that all of those sneaky, dishonest, conniving small coffee drinkers are getting rewarded.

Your most self-aware statement of the week.


*I know nothing about Starbucks rewards program...merely that one appears to exist.

rny321

I find parts of the discussion about earning status ironic and moderately entertaining. There are MR members who have already earned LTP without booking meetings who don't have a problem with others getting 10 nights credit for them. In contrast, there are SPG members who believe that booking MR meetings is somehow cheating but still plan to do so.

yeunganson

This is a legit and valid point. It is a mislabeling on my part. if I can re-write, I would say the 15 free credit card nights that count towards annual and lifetime nights was a terrible idea that cheapens the currency of eligible nights because you get them for free without generating memories that typically come with a night in a hotel.

CJKatl

Since when is generating memories required for a hotel stay? What a truly odd consideration.

UA-NYC

Sure - you're still acquiring "nights" for ~$17-25/night (using a $50/$75 meeting which are now prevalent) as opposed to $5-$7/night. But being able to do that (and not show up) still is a whole lot easier than trying to mattress run for under $100/night (and having to actually show up somewhere).

Magnitude matters. Whether folks accept it or not.

Yes, and I and many others have made fun of it on OMAAT/VFTW for being one of the dumbest things a loyalty program can do, and praying Marriott is not stupid enough to do the same. That absolutely de-values the top tier (even though Hilton's is pretty terrible already).

Ignoring rollover, ignoring a cheap event to top off status, ignoring the lowball estimate of only spending $12K-$15K on the card, ignoring lower ADRs...sure no difference at all besides all that.

HollyGlen

Ummm...no it's not different. Checking in and out of adjacent hotels every night in the same city to get extra stay credits is gaming the system. Except I don't call it that because rules are rules and members are welcome to maximise their points / credits using these rules. I don't judge the behaviour of SPG mattress runners who swap hotels every night, in the same way I don't judge the behaviour of MR members booking meetings to get free nights.

But Anson, the Corporate Staff of today are not the ones who came up with the scheme. Random operatives care about the job they need to do to get paid, nothing more, and certainly not to get a holistic picture of how the different moving parts are meant to dovetail together. That's the job of some suit with a VP title, in all probability, If you ask them what they think, you might get a more coherent answer, i.e. yes.

pinniped

If magnitude matters, then let's keep in mind that 99.999% of all Marriott elites have never received 10 EQN for a very cheap meeting that was solely booked to earn EQN. This is thing that even most people aware of Flyertalk, travel hacking blogs, and the finer points of hotel loyalty programs don't do. It's a thing that a few dozen people out of millions of Marriott members are doing. It's irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. I've read about it on this forum, laughed a little, and moved on.

I don't disagree. My biggest fear back in April was that the Marriott/Starwood merger was going to result in a Hiltonlike program. I'm very glad that did not happen. But I am happy to let HH and Amex pay me to carry their credit card. HH isn't my favorite program, but it still has enough of a place in my travels that I might as well accept Diamond status.

I still go back to the fact that on any given night at a Marriott, the Platinums occupying the rooms are genuine frequent guests who stay 60, 70, 100, or more nights a year. A few have the credit card, a few are actually aware of and/or needed some rollover nights, a few are their company's meeting coordinator, and odds are that none have ever even heard of the idea of booking dummy meetings for EQN.

This entire thread exists solely to soothe the OP's butthurtedness about not having LTPP in the combined program.

CJKatl

A few years back there was an employee sitting outside the CL at a major city FS checking eligibility prior to letting people into the CL. She had two lists, one showing G and Ps, the other showing people who had a rate allowing them into the CL. There were 120 rooms on the first list and 48 on the second. This was before United members had access. The hotel has about 1200 rooms, so approximately ten percent of the guests were G or P. While I do not want to name the hotel because the worker probably showed me something I should not have seen, it is a large hotel in one of the biggest US cities which is sometimes hard to find because it is not really at the address used. The hotel does give a second address on a different street to make it easier to find.

Eastbay1K

Yes. And let's get a bit more perspective here. My executive summary: (Caveat - this may be substantially shorter than other Executive Summaries you may have recently read.)

(1) I am also in that "LTP, but LTPP not really achievable without wasting buckets of dough this year." So, I'm not. I don't expect that I'll be missing out on much, but I'll never know. Life is like that. Yes, I think it is weak that "we" didn't have more opportunity to reach this possibly insignificant, but who really knows, higher status," but see (3), infra.

(2) I think it was chicken poopoodoodookaka that "we" didn't get a full year to get 10 SNAs with 50 nights. This has already affected my decision not to have certain Starwood stays when the other hotel is really the better option. The announcement with rapid cutoff date was, as described, chicken poopoodoodookaka. But see (3), infra.

(3) I am glad (or make that, relieved) that Marriott didn't give us the Continental (with United lipstick) fist treatment that I received as a UA MM. The resulting court case that arose from the treatment of MMs made it abundantly clear that these loyalty programs are allowed to be nothing more than a scam full of promises that never need be fulfilled. The simple fact is that no matter what Marriott or Starwood or any of these things promise, and they all do make promises, they aren't worth the marketing materials they are written on. They can tell you what you'll get if you spend 10000 nights and a million dollars with us, and when you're at 9999 nights and $999999, pull the rug out and you have no recourse.

Accordingly, this all could have been a lot worse. It wasn't bad for LTPs. It wasn't so great (IMnshO) for LTGs. Anyone who is crying a river .... well, I'm sure many of us can remember our fathers saying, when we were young and crying, 'I'll give you a reason to cry." This is no reason to cry.

End of Executive Summary

CJKatl

What kind of Executive Summary is this? You raise many valid points about what happens to you in the new program, but where are the demands to Marriott about your deserving more because you are better than others? Isn't an ES supposed to go into detail about that? You forgot to condescendingly tell Marriott how to run their program. It seems like you understand that Marriott made decisions based on data that you cannot see, but does that ignorance mean you should not instruct them how to run their business? Where are the judgmental parts?

And you have not invoked the creators once. What about the creators of the program?! Aren't you channeling the creators???? Can we trust an ES that does not claim to channel the creators??????

Eastbay1K

Humility requires one not claim the obvious.