There’s discussion on Flyertalk and also at One Mile at a Time about Marriott’s new loyalty program name.
Marriott combined their Starwood Preferred Guest, Marriott Rewards, and Ritz-Carlton Rewards programs into a new unified program with the same currency and benefits on August 18th. All accounts were merged onto Marriott’s IT platform. However they retained separate program branding for legal reasons, I’m told related to their timeshare contracts.
In 2019 two major things are happening with Marriott Rewards:
- Reward nights get more expensive, with a new higher-priced category 8 and with the introduction of high (and low) season pricing. The top award price goes from 60,000 points today to 100,000 next year.
- A new program name. Marriott has not yet released the name. However it appears it may ahve been leaked.
There’s a great deal of speculation today that the new program name will be Bonvoy, presumably like bon voyage. If that’s true then they’ll have selected the only thing worse than Hyatt calling their elite tiers Globalist, Explorist, and Discoverist.
Marriott filed for a trademark on the name and registed a bunch of domain names a month ago using the term.
Marriott left a Bonvoy website up on a test server. It showed a bunch of information about the loyalty program. Since being discovered the site has been pulled down. However it appeared to announce Bonvoy as the new name for the combined loyalty program.
Screen Shot via One Mile at a Time
Their description that “travel enriches the traveler and nourishes the world..opens minds, expands borders..” sounds very much like World of Hyatt marketing claptrap.
The website also showed 75 and 100-night elite tiers being renamed from Platinum Premier to Titanium and Platinum Premier Elite with Ambassador to Ambassador Elite. This is a departure from the Starwood model which pretended that Platinum was top tier and there were simply additional benefits for Platinums for staying more than 50 nights. Marriott’s surreal $20,000 minimum spend requirement for top tier (on top of 100 nights) remains.
At this point we do not know for certain that,
- This is the final version as opposed to merely a finalist and mockup. It looks highly likely, but this would be a plausible alternate explanation.
- This isn’t a related program leveraging Marriott’s loyalty program for some other activities like corporate sales, and that the website isn’t complete. Again, not sure likely, but not impossible.
Hopefully Bonvoy isn’t the final name for the program. Surely if Marriott paid consultants for that they could have gotten better for their money.
Like “Marriott Preferred Guest” was a bad choice….lol. I am convinced that Marriott’s management do not have a clue.
Bonvoy – Oh dear oh dear oh dear
Introducing Stariotts Bouy Rewards
Just a bunch of programs trying to stay afloat with 120 million members waiting for its massive Titanic devaluation
25 branding consultants and 20 million dollars and voila you have Bon Vey Rewards
Name of the century
Since Marriott is devaluing their program, I nominate Star-light, Mari-rot, or Carl-done for the new program name. Certainly better than Bon-kers or whatever that other name is that Marriott is thinking of using.
They should leave the point values unchanged. The name alone is enough of a devaluation.
This is as bad as WOH aka Hyatt with Globalist as top tier.
Stupid program name that may not translate. Don’t forget legacy Marriott and legacy SPG had strong loyalty programs in Japan and elsewhere.
It’s obvious they recognized that the stupid platinum, platinum premier and platinum premier ambassador names don’t make sense and only confuse people. Making it worse is the fact that Marriott credit cards are called “premier.”
Titanium sounds kind of ridiculous. Silver, gold, platinum, diamond and ambassador would be more logical.
I really hope they are only test marketing the name via bloggers and after the gales of laughter subside they will quietly bid that idea “bon voyage.”
Consultants are truly some of the dumbest people on the planet.
Bonvoy? Oy vey!
Don’t know why, but when I see Bonvoy the first thing that springs to mind is a carton of soy milk. Can’t shake the image!
Titanium is accurate. Just checked out of Sheraton and the invoices usually indicate P123456789, P reflecting platinum. Now it’s T123456789.
“Yeah, breaker one-nine / This here’s the Rubber Duck / You got a copy on me Pig Pen? … Mercy sakes alive, looks like we’ve got us a Bonvoy!”
I never did any kind of merging with my SPG & Marriott cards, so this fall when the annual fees came due, I paid the fee for each. I have a lot of points in SPG that I need to transfer to an airline. Should I still try to merge, and cancel 1 of the cards?
Just call it Bon Voyage for christ’s sake, stop being so typical American and over-complicating it.
Wow. WOH suddenly doesn’t sound like such a horrible name.
@Lindy – Best line by far.
MPG . Marriott Preferred Guest. Why is this so hard? That name would acknowledge SPG, Marriott Rewards and even the old Marriott Honored Guest
The silly names are a mild annoyance. As the saying goes, “I don’t care what you call me, just don’t call me late for dinner.” The proof of the pudding will be if we actually receive the benefits to which Marriott says we will be entitled such as suite upgrades, using SNAs, Your 24, and good ambassador service (please don’t transfer me to the China call center). Those benefits, as well as lifetime status names and benefits, are omitted from the chart in the OMAAT post b/t/w. Are there possibly any changes there?
@ Gary — I’m sure the geniuses over at WoH are rejoicing!
I like Titanium and Ambassador instead of 3 flavors of Platinum, and as bad as bonvoi is, if a bad program name is the price we pay for discernible elite level names, I’ll take that deal,
The way Marriott is Devaluating the Marriott Rewards program is Horrendous!!!! I am a Loyal member for 21 years and INFURIATED to think I give up usage of a timeshare for 100,000 points and can only get 1 night stay in a catagory 8 hotel during their Primetime….This is total Greed !!!!
Wow Gary!! So Marriott actually registered the site marrieddivorced.com? I assume this is a type or is the loyalty program’s honeymoon over?
@controller1 – it’s a screen shot of domains registered that day, not by marriott
GAWD-AWFUL name!
Couldn’t care less about program name if they make changes to elite tier names… being a multi year ambassador (206 nights last year and about 120 this year), i secretly cringe when staff congratulates me on my platinum status.
What marriott really needs to do is figure out the ritz reserve properties. I’ve stayed at two this year with well over $10k spend at each and get NO credit for the stays or spend towards my $20k requirement…
Marriott has already hugely devalued their points, I have stayed at least 20 times at the Sheraton four points Philadelphia airport and it was always 3,000 points ,I just stayed last week and it cost me 17,000 points, Starwood points were always valued at 1:3 with Marriott ,so the room should have cost me 9,000 points …SCREW YOU Marriott and your devalued points and TERRIBLE customer service over the phone.