ftrichard

UA-NYC

That's too bad, that's one of the few areas that would be an actual enhancement for SPG folks

escape4

I am puzzled as to why they would do this. I can understand different treatment regarding various T&Cs for an upscale brand like Ritz Carlton, but why single out all SPG brands for something like points advance? Once you integrate Starwood within Marriott, then I don't see much of a reason to have different treatment for a large chunk of brands other than temporary IT issues?

Lizie

Agree it is interesting. Perhaps the IT issues aren't as temporary as Marriott would have liked.

Keyser

this wording seems a bit strange....i have many last minute stays where i book the hotel a few hours before checking in....it would be extremely disappointing if free internet was not included for these stays....

M.dA.R.

Ord Liza

There's a lot left unsaid with this "draft". Just focusing on lifetime status, unless I missed something:

1. As mentioned upstream, it doesn't differentiate between prior Marriott years and prior SPG years so, on the surface, it appears not to count prior Marriott years in the manner that they were "counted" under the Marriott system. For some people (myself included), this makes the difference between 9 and 10 status years. That would stink.

2. It doesn't talk about counting prior Marriott gold years as platinum years for purposes of lifetime status. A big deal for those Marriott members who have been assured this was going to be done.

3. It doesn't address counting two years of status for years in which they were achieved under both legacy programs. Also doesn't specify that years achieved by linking don't count.

It also specifies that the Lifetime Status Criteria must be met "during the Member's participation in the Loyalty Program". The "Loyalty Program" is a defined term and is specified to begin in August 2018. This is obviously a drafting error and not what is meant (at least not without further clarification). The fact that this sentence doesn't address the prior years under the legacy programs gives me a little hope that the years of status under the legacy programs are simply not addressed (as opposed to being treated the same as future years).

(I also think that credit card nights counting toward status should be included as Section 4.2.b.(iii) not just via some links. I'd like clarification in the T and C that, for example, extra nights earned through spending on the legacy Chase Marriott card count.)

sfozrhfco

phltraveler

A lot of these were answered via members.marriott.com. Since the merged program T&Cs is more ongoing and the merging is more of a one time process, that makes sense.
The way years are counted in terms of earning lifetime status in the merged program is consistent in the way that they were at SPG. For example, if I hit 50 nights (new plat level in merged, old gold in MR) in 2017, that's a year at platinum. If I didn't reach the 50 night level in 2018, I would enjoy old gold/new plat benefits for that year, but it wouldn't count as a year of status for lifetime qualification.

Hard to say the current (about to be legacy) MR Lifetime criteria do not include years at a particular status level, just points and nights. And even when MR lifetime criteria did include years (a long time ago), it was just years of being in Marriott rewards - not years at a particular status level or higher.

We don't have to assume anything on this because it's been officially confirmed elsewhere:

Again answered here:
Not sure what you mean by this. The ambiguity that I'm aware of is that merging will potentially not count the number of years in the other program if the person is trying to qualify by end 2018 under their legacy program's rules (for MR 250 night/1.2m pts, 500/1.6m, and 750/2m respectively; for SPG, 250 nights/7 years gold and 500 nights/10 years plat) via the merged activity.

For the new lifetime criteria, including the 750 nights + 10 years at Plat (50 night level) or higher to achieve grandfathered LTPP, it's been spelled out that combined activity is going to count on members.marriott.com and in the T&C.

I don't follow what you mean here. The first paragraphs of the T&C define that the Loyalty Program is a successor of old MR and SPG, etc. (the "Legacy programs") and the Lifetime status criteria have mapping for the legacy MR/SPG lifetime activity...

Fair, but as far as I can see in the current non-merged MR T&C, the 15 nights from the card and additional night per $3K spent on the old Chase card is not there either. EDIT: Never mind, they are present in the non-merged T&C..

Ord Liza

I recognize that most of these questions have been answered (some more clearly than others), but it would have been nice to have had those answers explicitly addressed in the final terms and conditions. Going forward, the terms and conditions will govern, not potentially ambiguous statements made in what are essentially marketing materials (members.marriott.com). However, I get your point about the one-time nature of most of these issues. As almost all of my points relate to lifetime status achieved by past behavior, we will know soon enough. I just hope that the old "rules" in existence at the time of occurrence will be applied to past events, rather than the new rules.

Dr. HFH

Or, possibly the computers aren't connected real time, and it's daily batch processing or download? That might explain what they're saying, but how disappointing if that's the case.

TravelinSperry

Because they lowered the value of your cert. You may not need the extra value, but it was lowered. It shouldn't have been imo, they gave you a reward and the value should remain constant (or increase) until expiry.

And yes, you will get 2 annual choice benefits, one at 50 and one at 75 nights.

phltraveler

As the person who found them, I strongly doubt that theory. The location (a portion of Marriott's website, publicly available on the internet, without any sort of login required) where they were contained gives high confidence that they are final or near final T&Cs, but other details (namely what the URL where they were contained, and the fact that the pages were marked to not be indexed by search engines) makes me think that it's more of a slip-up that I happened to stumble upon.

Namely a different page that linked to it happened to not be marked NOINDEX, and as such was indexed by Google.

Another example of a page on that section of the site (like the terms and conditions) that is marked to not be indexed by Google:




I'd put it likely on batch processing, and the fact that not every interface for reservations is real time. I've had reservations that were made the night before (<24 hr to check-in) and some on the same day and had complimentary high speed internet work fine.

I think it's an edge case for if the property does do daily or maybe multiple times a day (but not instantaneous) batch. Had that happen when I booked a Marriott stay in the morning and checked in during the afternoon. I called the front desk (couldn't use room # to get enhanced internet), they told me to call the provider, and the provider gave me an access code that still gave me enhanced internet free of charge, but I could see a lot of properties just giving people an access code or the third party internet provider just coding people for the standard speed internet.

kaizen7

xar

This is interesting.
I'm sitting on 45 nights in FY2018 at the moment hence i'm wondering if:
a. I should hold off till after 18th Aug to clock my 5 stays (this should bump me up to the new plat & get the new 5 SNA awards)
or
b. Clock the 5 stays now to get Gold and then get mapped to the new program as a platinum. (But i suppose there is a risk of the 5 SNA awards not being awarded since technically this is the legacy program?)

Finally, i can still opt to "stay" in the old program until 31st Dec 2018? All i need to do is not initiate the combine request?

Thanks.

Edited Afternote: Realized this is an SPG Thread hence I am sorry i posted Marriott related questions here