Being a Marriott Bonvoy member is like navigating Kafka’s bureaucracy blindfolded. So this Marriott hotel wants to make absolutely clear that Ambassador members and other elites are not entitled to a complimentary bottle of water.
Aside from being cheap and insulting, the hotel’s real beef is with… Marriott… whose benefit charts are nearly impossible for the median IQ member to to understand what applies where, with which brands, and when. Most just know they ‘usually get’ free bottled water, assume it’s a benefit when they book with Marriott because of their status. And so the hotel, which doesn’t want to be more generous than it has to be, has gotten frustrated telling members they’re wrong. They made a sign.
Show us on the doll where the water bottle touched you…
byu/New-Dependent-4331 inmarriott
This sign is factually correct. Marriott requires Fairfield Inn properties to offer Platinum, Titanium, and Ambassador Bovnoy members an Elite Welcome Gift choice at check-in:
- 500 points per stay, or
- an F&B item (in the U.S., Canada and Europe – in Asia, Australia, Pacific Islands, Caribbean, Mexico, Central America, South America, the Middle East, and Africa it’s an F&B “amenity”)
Many hotels offer bottled water. Some brands do offer complimentary water independet of elite benefits. Others are either being generous or treating the water as the food and beverage ‘item’. The program terms do not require Fairfield properties to provide complimentary bottled water specifically to elites.
Of course, Marriott’s elite breakfast policy is even more opaque and confusing than its welcome amenity. There’s a special sort of hermeneutical exegesis required to unearth the true meaning of their elite breakfast benefits – as every brand, region and resort status rewrites the rulebook. Figuring out the correct breakfast benefit for a given hotel is harder than unraveling Schrödinger’s cat’s tax return.
What’s really going on is that,
- Marriott’s primary interes is making owners happy. Their CEO has said they’ll put “net rooms growth” on his tombstone. So owners can do as they wish, and policies are meant to attract owners.
- The Bonvoy program is how they market hotels. It’s how they deliver customers to owners. They need to convince members it’s valuable, or else they have little to sell to the owners.
- So each owner is supposed to honor the program. But they want to spend as little as possible doing so.
It’s a tragedy of the commons. The value of Bonvoy is that members believe perks will show up reliably, so they’ll choose Marriott more often and pay more to do it. That belief is what lets Marriott sell “demand” to owners, keep fees flowing, and grow franchise contracts.
Each owner, though, wants to take the demand the program delivers, while minimizing the cost of delivering the perks. Upgrades, breakfast, late checkout, lounge access, bottled water, bonus points, —those hit the property expense lines directly, while the downside of disappointing one elite guest is often delayed, diffuse, or pushed onto “Bonvoy” as a brand rather than that owner.
Bonvoy’s credibility is the shared pasture. Each owner can “graze” it by skimping a little, saving money while still benefiting from the program’s overall pull.
If too many owners do that, the shared resource (member trust that benefits will be honored) gets worn down, and the program stops being as powerful at generating incremental stays and premium pricing, hurting all owners (who can always defect to another brand) and Marriott.
Incidentally, bottled water is an explicit elite benefit starting at the Discoverist level in the World of Hyatt program.
It is simple – don’t fly on Frontier, rent from Hertz, or stay at Marriott. Anyone who does so knowingly deserves what they get.
Marriott has no loyalty program. It’s that simple. “Bonvoy” is just a name used to market the Marriott experience.
Give up on the idea that loyalty to Marriott will get you **anything** in return and you will be a happier person who occasionally gets a nice pat on the head and cookie or equivalent.
I blame fellow elite members who abused complimentary water. they used more than ten bottles a day
Working hard to be below and beneath your expectations!
Dear Elite Bonvoy Members
We give you the privilege of staying here at our property which we hope you can appreciate.
However why is it you are always wanting something from us?
Upgrades,free breakfasts,bottled waters, late check out etc.The list goes on forever………
Use our dam# water fountains and stop being so greedy.
Next you will be asking for a clean room without bed bugs.
Please leave us alone!
WE do however appreciate your loyalty as Marrihoot tell us we must say that to you
each and every stay at least once or twice.Once is enough!
Happy Holidays
They’ve fallen so far since SPG. THAT was a program.
I saved millions of points for retirement. A few years before the devaluation began. No upgrades , not a big deal, but holes that weee 10k were now 35k. I said F Marriott and burned through points giving them to family and friends. I feel liberated and not stuck on Marriott. After they took over SPG and the empty promises they don’t care for us and I don’t care about them
Being a Lifetime Titanium member, I have stopped staying at Marriott properties in North America. I had switched to Hilton and will make Lifetime Diamond this year, plus I’m retiring in April to the EU, so my hotel stays wont be a problem in Europe or other parts of the world, will, accept for the US.
I was just thinking that… Remember the good old SPG days? Marriott was always crappy but they bought SPG and destroyed it.
Ron has summed it up perfectly. Nothing more need be said.
Thanks Ron!
I like Frequent Miler’s Bonvoy’d annual ‘Bonvoy’d’ awards… which, apparently, some Marriott franchises still earn regularly for their spite and pettiness.
@Don G — 10x? Are they running a ‘golden shower’ business on the side?! Sheesh.
Meanwhile at Hilton they hand me a bag with two waters and a snack even at a Spark property…..
What’s the big deal with bottled water? Just turn the tap and water flows.
@Baliken — Depends where you are. Ever heard of Montezuma’s revenge? Eh, nevermind, you do you, drink up!
Marriott does not police its properties. Staying at a Ritz Carlton in Singapore, $3k for two nights, and they sent me an email saying “please be informed that The Ritz-Carlton, Millenia Singapore does not participate in the Marriott Bonvoy program.” Seriously?
So looking up at Costco its 24 count of FIJI water for 19.99. So roughly 84 cents. Marriott is trash, its owners are human trash, their employees are substandard. Your best bet is never to stay at this chain.
In regards to enforcing Bonvoy perks, rules etc. Get some gonads Marriott. McDonalds for instance enforces their rules with an iron fist. They quite often punish franchise owners who do not comply with the basic rules. There are expecatations instead all anyone gets out of this chain is sewage.
Bonvoy and Skymiles Medallion status. Both sound great but are no longer worth a damn.
Bottled water is wasteful and unnecessary where drinking water is safe and healthy.
You don’t know what’s in the bottle. Generally it’s exactly the same stuff as what comes out of a tap somewhere. My tap water at home could honestly and accurately be described as “mountain water from artesian springs” and it’s municipal water.
What leaches into the water when it sits in a plastic bottle for weeks or months?
Bonvoy sucks. The reason it sucks is because of the execution, the opacity, and the inconsistencies across brands and regions.
The best thing Bonvoy could do for owners and Bonvoy loyalists is to simplify the program and bring it in line with reality – all at once. Eliminate Silver and Gold as tiers at all, make Platinum the lowest tier, etc.
If the program has to suck, at least make it suck consistently and understandably. If breakfast isn’t a benefit, fine. If upgrades to suites won’t happen, fine. Set the expectation so people know what to expect.
Hilton and others set expectations appropriately and it works for them. There’s no reason it can’t work for Marriott, either.
Pity. I have close to ended stays at St Regis thanks to Macau st Regis. Usually stay 60 nights between Ritz and st Regis. Dropped it cold turkey. Now just at Sheraton jw Marriott down to less then 60 days a year total
I think the Fairfield notice about water is very clear and frankly it is up to the property. Cheap but clear.
Also, I have had amazing Marriott stays in Asia and Middle East where my titanium status has gotten me superb benefits so I continue to be a loyal Marriott guy. Maybe marriotts in USA are an exception. I usually stay Hyatt in USA .
Good thing I left Marriott around mid year. Using up some of the points this week in London and I’ll probably only stay when other options are not available
@Bobby J – Best comment on this thread by far. But the other huge problem is giving away status based on credit card membership. Despite being a broad proponent of free market economics, I would erupt with orgasmic schadenfreude watching the management teams of major domestic hotel chains and airlines collapse into total convulsion if something like the Credit Card Competition Act was ever made into law. They’d be forced to finally revert to the old days of providing halfway decent customer service. There’s a clear reason beyond culture alone as to why North America largely trails the rest of the world in terms of the quality of hospitality offerings, and that reason is squarely credit card rebates and rewards. They have successfully turned frequent travelers like me into unwitting prostitutes. Marriott is perhaps the best example overall.
Wonderful article laying out the scheme simply, concisely, and comprehensively showing why the member can’t win!
The only way to win is not to play.
None of the loyalty program are really worthwhile or worth spending the extra money on at this point. I’m just buying on price at this point and booking/staying wherever I get the best value for the money. It’s the same with all of the car rental companies, hotels and airlines, and just about every other consumer product too. Most brands in general are mattering less and less with time, they don’t seem to understand what a “brand” should be anymore… I would love to have Starwood Preferred Guest back.
Bonvoy is definitely inconsistent and I keep track of which hotels are disappointing. That being said, I get far better treatment and far more frequent upgrades with my titanium status than Hilton ever gave me with diamond. Of course the real benefits are found outside the US. True for Hilton as well. I do need to try Hyatt for a year or two… in the meantime, in the US, Marriotts and Sheratons have consistently been good value and treatment relative to the other brands for me. Courtyards tend to be complete cr#p. I don’t expect to be treated like royalty, so maybe I’m just happy because I have lower expectations.
Agree with Ron. If you stay at these places or fly those airlines, you deserve the mediocre results you’ll get.
The way I always describe Marriott to people who say I must get a lot of benefits from all the travel is that I spent 8 months at platinum and 4 months at Titanium. I stayed over 100 nights at Marriott properties. I was upgraded to a suite exactly zero times.
I feel like reasonable amount of drinking water should be a basic human right, and therefore hotels should provide it for their guests. It doesn’t need to be in bottles — it could be in a filtered tap on every floor or in the lobby, or for example.
I choose Hilton. It is pretty consistent. I wonder why the continual discussion about Marriott? If they are trash. Report once and walk away. But why never any comparison with Hilton?
@BA, your referring to the Costco price of Fiji water at 84 cents/bottle where theres no need for a Fairfield Inn to provide.
So its much cheaper, a few cents per bottle involved for Poland Spring/Aquafina/Dasani.
I imagine some “expert” MBA consultants sat in a room and decided its all about maximizing revenue, to sell overpriced water in the lobby rather than give away. Only recourse is to stop at a grocery store and haul your own supply to the room.
Per the article, the hotels are prioritizing profits over pleasing the elites. Is that not the capitalism system we proudly proclaim is the best in the world and everyone should copy it?
Or it’s only bad when the elites don’t get what they want, in which case capitalism says “just take your business elsewhere”.
@Luke
Exactly. Now that I’ve switched to Hyatt I always get two water bottles. Never anything fancy, Poland Spring or some local no name brand.
I don’t need a lot of water but I do need a bit of tasty drinking water, the tap water tastes awful in a lot of parts it the country due to hardness and such.
What @ron said:
“It is simple – don’t fly on Frontier, rent from Hertz, or stay at Marriott. Anyone who does so knowingly deserves what they get.”
I recently cashed out all my Marriott points and dumped them into Aeroplan, will never look back.
@Diamond — “lifetime titanium”? Lol.
@IsaacM gets it. Was just at a Hyatt Regency, and they had the bag with two bottles of water ready to go without even having to ask. (And, if you’re at the one in Boston near the airport, they’ll give you a certificate for free chowder with dinner. Chowdah!)((yes, the one Gary got yelled at for trying to check-in at 2:50PM, 10 minutes early!))
Bottled water is a ridiculous waste. With very few exceptions, tap water is perfectly fine. A nice perk, if you are somewhere where it’s not great (like Las Vegas) is to simply have a filtered tap in the hallway. Also, if you drink Fiji water you should absolutely have to pay for it. It a tax on stupidity.
Lifetime Diamond with Hilton, but used to have Marriott as my #2 choice with my mid tier status. I quit them this year unless I have to stay there because it’s part of a pre-arranged or paid business trip/conference…and replaced it with Hyatt. Much pleased and won’t go back.
For those saying that bottled water is “a ridiculous waste,” on request I’ll send you a picture of the black crud that builds up around the water line in the toilet of my Marriott extended-stay.
Nice property, great staff…but no way am I drinking anything less than filtered water here!
I am in several the hotel programs, Marriott Titanium and Hilton Diamond and Hyatt Globalist. Marriott and Hilton elite programs are worthless. Maybe you will receive an upgrade to the parking lot level by the elevator “a really nice room.” Hilton just watered the program going to the airline dollars model (almost an entirely separate rewards program). The exception is Hyatt. But the chase for status will leave you unsatisfied and you will feel taken.
As one who has spent equal time as both Hiton and Marriott top elite. I can say with certainty…both suck. Hilton just sucks a bit less.