Category Archives for Hotels.
A lot of people are unhappy with how Marriott is handling travel packages. Over the weekend Marriott shared the new chart for how legacy travel package certificates work in the new program.
Marriott listened to the feedback that came in quickly over the weekend and is already making an adjustment.
Starwood Preferred Guest has moved onto the Marriott IT platform. Marriott brought their system down on Saturday to transition everything over. (Loyalty programs always do these things on Saturdays for good reason.)
IT is hard, and things haven’t gone as smoothly as we would have hoped. Awards haven’t been redeemable at all properties, and for some it’s been sporadic. However for the most part systems are now largely functional on Monday afternoon. But not for members whose accounts have the wrong status.
Marriott’s new loyalty program has launched, but as of this writing they’re still working through the IT. They told us to expect things to be down throughout Saturday. If things work on Sunday I’ll be impressed.
Compared to what might have happened I still think that the new Marriott program is about the best we could possibly have hoped for or expected. It’s stapling some version of the Starwood elite program onto some version of the Marriott redemption program (‘the best of both worlds’) along with some devaluation of each.
I hate non-refundable hotel rates. Even when I think my plans are firm you’d be surprised how often something comes up and plans change. Plus I may want to stay somewhere else even if I”m going to be in the same city. Or rates will drop so I’d rather pocket savings rather than lock myself in.
Several years ago I wrote about tricks for getting out of a non-refundable hotel booking. But there’s something I didn’t know about Hilton reservations.
Say that you wanted to stay at the Park Hyatt Vendome in Paris over Christmas. The hotel has rooms for sale, but there are no award rooms available for December 22-26.
You can set an alert for a Park Queen or for the Twin which are bookable with points. Or perhaps you already have a room booked at the hotel and what you are looking to do is use points or a confirmed suite upgrade for a suite — but the standard suite isn’t available. Set an alert for the Park Suite King.
Bibles have been in hotel rooms for over 100 years, dating back at least to 1908 at the Superior Hotel in Superior, Montana. The Gideons, which was formed by two men sharing a hotel room in 1898, give them away for free.
The average life of a hotel room bible is six years. Guests take them, even though they say ‘thou shalt not steal’ inside.
Since announcing the new Marriott program in April there’s been inconsistent information about breakfast, about lounge access, and about redemptions for Starwood properties that previously charged double points compared to the standard award chart.
They haven’t been ready for prime time for instance they haven’t shared what would happen with travel packages redeemed prior to the start of the new program but where award certificates hadn’t yet been used for a reservation. And they hadn’t even published the terms and conditions for the new program. They don’t plan to share those things until the program launch on August 18.
Existing travel packages have been an outstanding questions. Members who redeem for a travel package, transfer points to miles, and hold onto the hotel stay certificate to use later have wondered ‘since Marriott’s award charts are changing, and my certificates are for a specific redemption category, what’s going to happen? what hotels will I be able to use them for?’
Marriott is sharing that travel packages are going to be adjusted so that they will be used on ‘similarly valued’ hotel categories.
Marriott is launching a new program August 18th which will be the same for all of Marriott Rewards, Starwood Preferred Guest, and Ritz-Carlton Rewards.
Accessing frequent guest accounts, and even making reservations, is expected to be offline most of that day. In addition Marriott Rewards and Ritz-Carlton Rewards accounts may be unavailable during overnight hours between now and the 18th. These overnight outages shouldn’t affect Starwood accounts.
Starting August 18th though you won’t be able to use previous travel package redemptions for a month.
When hotels change brands, it often happens suddenly. Paid reservations are generally honored. Award reservations are sometimes honored. In either case, though, elite members of a loyalty program should not expect new management from a new brand to honor the benefits guests were entitled to in that other program.
Sometimes hotel chains do a good job re-accommodating guests with points bookings that are displaced. Sometimes they don’t do a very good job. However even when they do it can be stressful for the guest. And for employees.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
