Category Archives for Hotels.
The Carambola Beach Resort St. Croix is a sad tale. Marriott has 30 brands, but this hotel is an unbranded Marriott. You see, it used to be a Renaissance. It’s fallen into such disrepair that they don’t show that name any longer.
How this happened is fascinating because it’s a tale of incompetence and, in my opinion, likely corruption on the part of the government employee pension fund of the US Virgin Islands. This story is insane.
If you book an award stay and your flight diverts on the way to your vacation, and you can’t check in as scheduled, call your mortgage broker for a second or third lien on your house – quick!
Hyatt, like Marriott, charges you cash in an undisclosed amount (rather than points) if you have to cancel an award trip inside of the cancellation deadline for your stay.
Marriott offered the non-sequitur that it’s easy to request retro credit for points that don’t post correctly, that it’s “no more than a two-step process,” which is funny because the form literally lists three steps.
Airbnb co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky took to twitter to crowdsource priorities for improving their product. He reported back on the top six priorities that came out of the project.
Marriott travel packages – a multi-night hotel stay bundled with a transfer of airline miles – used to be one of the great sweet spots of Marriott Rewards, just as ‘Nights and Flights’ was a great value option in the Starwood Preferred Guest program. Effective January 19, 2022 though these redemptions are no more.
A Marriott Bonvoy member reports that they had 102 nights and $13,992 spent with Marriott during 2021. Top tier Ambassador status required at least 100 nights and $14,000 in spend. They add that they should have gotten a drink at the bar on their last stay, but didn’t realize they’d need it. And they’d happily send Marriott the $8.
Several hotels in Marriott’s Autograph Collection now hit guests with an extra $4.99 per night ‘sustainability fee’ that isn’t included in the room rate. The fee isn’t described on the hotels’ websites, either.
This appears to be a fee to sustain the hotel owner’s revenue since they do not even appear to be pretending that tacking on a non-optional fee – drip pricing – somehow benefits the environment.
One sweet spot is that MGM Rewards grants Gold elite status to Hyatt Explorist and Globalist members. This now includes a waiver of resort fees, upgrade at check-in if available (view, high floor); dedicated line at restaurants; and complimentary valet parking.
However if you’ve gained your Gold status via Hyatt you will not receive the Gold level’s $100 tier achievement celebration dinner. And if you redeem Hyatt points for your stay you will not have your resort fee waived.
I’d bet a lot of members will run afoul of this without realizing it, especially since it does not appear that Marriott has any controls in place to prevent you from giving away room nights more than 5 times in a calendar year and they haven’t told members about this new rule.
Hyatt and MGM have a partnership that dates back to 2013. They each offer members in the other program status matches – not one time matches, but rather status in one program ‘equals’ status in the other.
And the status year in each program ends at a different time. This creates an opportunity to still have status with one program, after your status has ended in the other, and to use that to ‘match back’ to regain status – in perpetuity, or as long as this tactic has continued to last (and it’s lasted for years).
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 »
