CJKatl

Of course you and I know that person would have been gifted Plat, which would have been Marriott's decision and is none of anyone else's business, especially people that do not know the data behind the decision.

pinniped

I hold 2 MR Visas and 1 SPG Amex.

I've always kept the Visas because I can always find a pretty good use for a Cat 5 certificate. I'm LT Gold, never really a threat to reach Plat, so the 15 nights weren't a big driver. Although now, sitting on 745 nights with night #750 likely to post to my account on around July 26th (fingers crossed!), I'm glad I had a few years of those 15 nights.

SPG Amex was always my primary-spend card. Great card...one I will miss dearly. Well, I may keep it just for the free night, but I'll probably be looking for a new home for general-spend.

One misconception the OP has about Marriott is that, looking across the entire member base, Marriott members mainly get points and status by staying in the hotels. There aren't any easy ways to acquire MR points without a hotel stay. No great airline conversions, no consistent lucrative partner offers, and - importantly - no credit card that offered a powerful general-spend earning option. Contrast to Starwood where I'm sure they've always had a substantial base of members who were primarily credit card members first, thanks to how good the SPG Amex has always been. Granted, those members are Gold so they aren't taking suites away from Plats, but Marriott doesn't have any real way to take away suites from "legit" Plats either. Honestly, if you hotel at either brand has 100 Plats in it on a given night, 99 of them probably got there just by doing regular hotel stays. The Golds may be CC member, United fliers, or whatever. But not the Plats, which is really what matters.

GoPhils

Old Golds or new Golds :-) ? Because Old Golds are now Plat.

X-ON

1. SPG bumped members I have been bumped twice and it do NOT count towards LT PLT/GLD
2. All I argue for is that the same functionality would be applied across legacy MR and legacy SPG accounts to determine number of elite years, any problem with that?
3. Yes, so if MR bumped you up to MR PLT with 74 nights .. No roll-overnights for you .... that is my whole point .... hence an incentive for MR to bump members close to a threshold I put no judgement into this practice I just recognize it was .... a practice ... In fact I am totally agnostic with respect to which functionality is determining the legacy # of elite years as long as the same functionality is applied across all legacy accounts.

pinniped

Current-day Plats.

Current-day MR Plats and SPG Plats are by and large getting there via hotel stays.
Future Plat Premiers will have gotten there by and large via hotel stays.
Neither brand has a wide history of comping or giving out current Plat to large numbers of people. They've both created a variety of non-stay paths to Gold, but they "defend" Plat reasonably well.

If we were talking about Hilton, the conversation might be a little different now that they have a credit card that not only gives you automatic Diamond but one that pays you an annual "fee" to carry it. But even at Hilton, on any given night in any given hotel, the "stay" Diamonds will always vastly outnumber the Aspire Diamonds.

CJKatl

I agree that parties should be treated equally but under no circumstances should Marriott take away previously granted status. People made qualification decisions based on what Marriott promised at the time. Marriott granted status. To pull it back because Marriott retroactively changed the rules would be unfair and would create a PR nightmare. Who would believe Marriott in the future if they played take-backsies?

Marriott and SPG were different programs. What you are asking is akin to two people playing chess, one person capturing the opponent's king but later announcing the winner would be the one with more pieces left on the board. You don't change the rules after the game is played.

Again, I am not sure why anyone would advocate taking something away or caring about how other people qualified.

X-ON

Well, you got granted a status historically, nobody is taking that away from you.
What is totally different question is what counts towards LT qualification. I was bumped to PLT twice, nobody is taking that away from me, however whether this counts towards LT qualification is another matter entirely. Your reasoning works in the context of LT nights since LT nights was a variable defined in both programs even though the definition was very different . Here your argument regarding taking away that somebody was awarded in past works, since members was awarded LT nights in both programs albeit pertaining to different definitions. Number of elite years was never a variable in MR hence you were never awarded any elite years, therefore there is no elite years to retract.

GoPhils

CJKatl

Not sure what made up "awarded any elite years" even means, but it is not a requirement. The requirement is "total Elite years achieved at that level or a higher level." We Marriott Rewards members did achieve status, most through BIB but some through cc nights, gifting, challenges or other criteria that impressed Marriott enough to verify the status was achieved. Marriott is not going to start taking away past years of granted status. Why anyone would want that is ludicrous. Who cares how others qualified? That was Marriott decision.

swanscn

Interesting thread here and I find all of the opinions amusing. For the record I am LT Platinum and I qualified back under the original rules. I think back then it 1000 Butt in Bed Nights and I think 10 years in the program (could be wrong on that count). If someone where to ask me about status qualification I would ask them to return to rewarding people who actually stay in the hotels. You can continue to earn your points in all the different ways the programs make possible, but if you want status make it the number of nights the member stays in the rooms.
The MR Rewards program has been a excellent marketing program and has given me great benefit over the years. I will not be sweating things as my time in hotels is winding down but having the LT status is nice, I have not been near 75 nights in years (but still in the multi-thousands of nights in Marriott's). I just think the top tier in any of these programs should be hard to earn and then the program provide a benefit that equals what it takes to get there.
Just my opinion of course

X-ON

All I am saying is the function (with your LT activity as an argument) that determines the # elite years should be the same over all accounts. If MR adopts the function currently in place for SPG all status earned will not count towards LT elite years, only those obtain in a specific manner. This has nothing to do with taking anything away from anybody in fact MAR already announced that status obtained from linkage do not count, so all obtained statuses do not count. Hence if a gifted elite year in MR counts towards elite year in MPG then it should for a gifted year in SPG as well. If you by saying "nothing should be taken away from anybody" argue for a more liberal interpretation of a valid elite year; I am all for it as long as it is applied the same across both MR and SPG accounts that is all

JackE

This is amazingly well written, so thank you for that.

I do have one big issue with it. Marriott's 75-night threshold is considerably higher than Starwood and Hyatt and, I suspect, most if not all other competitors for comparable status. Perhaps that 75-night threshold was selected precisely BECAUSE they allowed additional ways to gain nights besides BIB.

CJKatl

It is. The qualification rules in place at the time the status was reached will dictate. The applies if one reached status under SPG or MR. The rules in place at the time will not be retroactively changed for anyone so the expectation at the time and the settled decision at the time will be honored. Same rule for everyone. When someone linked an account they were given perks of the other program but never earned status in the other program so that is handled differently, but as far at attaining status, honoring the rules under which a member earned status, but it the SPG rules or MR rules, is treating everyone as was expected, as was promised and the same. Changing rules for one group while leaving the rules the same for another group would be treating the two groups differently.

It is important for everyone to realize is there is no suggestion Marriott is going to take away status. It is a made up fantasy that, for some reason, some legacy SPG members have put forward as what they want (?) but Marriott is not considering such nonsense. It would be a shame for anyone to take the notion seriously or be concerned that it was going to happen. Nothing Marriott has said or done would indicate there is any chance that this would happen and with a few days between now and when the new rules kick in such a drastic step is obviously not going to happen. There is really no reason to discuss it as it is not going to happen.

X-ON

I am sorry if I was unclear; the function I was referring to was the function that determines LT status NOT annual status, ok? Hence only a subset of your obtained annual statuses would be counted towards your LT status. I have never argued to remove any legacy MR LT status from anyone. so if you are LT MR GLD it do not matter how many elite years you have in order to determine if you are LT MPG PLT, you are that by default. However how you count # years only becomes interesting when you do not have enough points (MR) or years (SPG). In this situation the awarding of MPG LT tenor needs to be determined using the same function across all accounts. So if gifted MR and SPG statuses do not count towards LT status I fail to understand how something has been taken away from anybody it is just how MPG has chosen to define a qualifying elite year.In the case of MR no elite years have never been awarded so in that context it is even harder to understand how elite years have been taken away from anybody.

CJKatl

It is extremely clear. If a member achieved Gold in 2015 in a way that was acceptable to Marriott but not to you, you want Marriott to that away when counting years at status. It's very clear you want those years taken away from the "total Elite years achieved at that level or a higher level." Again, the important thing for everyone to know is that Marriott has made no announcement indicating they will even be considering this craziness.

What if Marriott decided that if a member did not have a birthday night included in a year the year wouldn't count? You might argue that SPG members didn't have birthday nights, but what would keep Marriott from redefining what counts that way? Your asking Marriott to redefine what counts as a year status was achieved to encompass a different set of rules years after the matter was settled is no different. MR had rules, members followed the rules and status was attained and recognized by both parties whether a third party not involved in that transaction liked it or not. End of story.

And finally you keep referencing awarding years of status when the rule for qualification in the new program is "total Elite years achieved at that level or a higher level." Awarding years of status appears to be made-up and has nothing to do with qualifying for LT status in the new program so why keep bringing it up? Why not bring up how many times someone whistled "Oh Susanna" in a given year as it is just as relevant?