When Marriott’s acquisition of Starwood first closed, they immediately allowed you to link accounts. That gave you the ability to status match and it gave you the ability to move points between accounts at a ratio of 1 Starpoint to 3 Marriott points. Linking accounts does not and will not ever automatically combine them.
Marriott has migrated everyone to a new IT platform and launched their new program — new earning, redemption, and benefits. Technically the Starwood, Marriott, and Ritz-Carlton programs keep their separate branding until next year. But the programs are now all the same.
Starwood members get new account numbers. Log into your account and you’re prompted with a new 9 digit account number that maps to your Starwood account.
In essence everyone that was a Starwood member and also a Marriott member has two separate Marriott accounts. These are not being combined automatically.
- It works just like before if you found yourself with two Marriott accounts for whatever reason.
- You can request to have the accounts combined, and that puts all of your points in one place and all of your elite status credits in one place.
- The difference is that now lots of people need to do it, and are being prompted to do it. Marriott says they are not ever going to do it automatically for you.
Marriott tells me they are “now rolling out [the ability to combine accounts] in batches to our members through tomorrow. As a result, when members log in and see the prompt they will have the opportunity to combine their accounts.”
Not everyone’s account has this feature yet. It’s rolling out in batches. Here’s what Marriott has to say about the process,
Once members’ combine their Marriott Rewards, which includes The Ritz Carlton-Rewards, and SPG accounts their nights and points earned will also combine, potentially helping them achieve Elite status faster and accumulate more points which can be used for redemption night stays, Moments and more.
Combining accounts must be done by members and will not happen automatically even if accounts are linked.
There are still some IT issues left to solve, for instance some members are showing the wrong elite status level. But they’re far enough along and believe that functionality and stability are to a point where now through tomorrow members are first being given the opportunity to combine their accounts.
Starwood balances have been multiplied by three for the new program currency. Marriott accounts remain unchanged. It largely doesn’t matter which of your two accounts you keep, even if you want to requalify for status under legacy Starwood rules. It’s just a matter of which profile and number you’ll use going forward.
Start with Marriott if you want to keep your Marriott profile and account number, or start with Starwood to keep your SPG profile and your new 9-digit account number.
When you go through the process you will log into the account you want to keep, then you’ll be asked to log into the account you are combining into it.
They verify with you exactly what will be combined from each account:
Then they let you know what will get combined right away and what will take up to two days to reflect in your combined account.
You’ll get one final step, confirming that you want to do this. I went ahead and confirmed, and unfortunately the system errored out.
I expect they’ll get this all sorted over the next day or so.
Is there any benefit to waiting to combine?
So Gary at first there was a page under lifetime levels that had PLT Premier as well as LFT PLT now it’s gone. with 4400 nights I was hopeful!!
I am sorry but what they have right now is IT failure. All these things are rather trivial programming issues and could be easily tested for a smaller group of customers before rolling out the changes.
I wasn’t able to login into my SPG account for 2 days and this is simply unacceptable. I am going to stay in a Sheraton on Saturday but for now I am still taking advantage of the ongoing HHonors promo..
It wasn’t showing on either of my accounts, but when I logged into my Marriott account in an incognito window, I was able to combine. Hope that helps someone else, too.
Succeeded with the following URL: https://www.marriott.com//loyalty/merge/sign-in-merge.mi . Still some errors (e-mail address is gone, I’m gender-less , some other weird behaviour). See my tweet ( https://twitter.com/peerke/status/1031663253448019969 ) as well.
seriously…wtf? I already combined…I need to combine again? This is way too confusing
Just signed on to follow the merge process to the end. My MR & SPG are under one now. Thanks for the write-up. (My “status” hasn’t changed which I was expecting. Still shows me as Platinum Elite which I was for both before the combination. Online MR chart says I should be PLAT Premeir Elite now).
sorry..I already linked…Like Gary said “linking is not combining”. What a cluster…
I’ve not even been able to sign in post-merger.
combined my account. Despite they say im able to see my SPG reservation in my Marriott account but i didnt see it yet. I’ll wait for few more days before pestering Marriott
QUESTIONS:
I am 15 nights away from Platinum with SPG.
I am 50 nights away with Marriott.
I have 28 nights booked with SPG coming up soon, if I book half of them with SPG and get my Platinum status and the others at the same property with my Marriott account will that count toward my platinum status with Marriott.
Another question I have two rooms at a Marriott coming up soon, Marriott only allows one room to earn night stays, SPG allows 3. If I book one room with my new, SPG number and one with my Marriott number will I get a night stay on each account through the reminder of the year.
Does this require me to keep both accounts separate for the remainder of the year, which is fine.
I am certain there are several other scenarios I can think of.
Looks like the SPG membership servers are down completely right now…
@Chris – not really, no.
Is there any benefit to making one program your “primary” program over the other? For example, choosing Marriott Rewards as your main account, and merging you SPG account into it.
Anyone else’s accounts showing the wrong # of elite nights? I had 15 in SPG, 5 from each of the 2 credit cards, one 4 night stay and one 1 night stay, but it is now showing only 11 elite nights and it looks like it was hardcoded as all 11 being paid stays.
Gary, I would appreciate if you would send out a future post letting us know what to do if we have both Marriott and SPG credit cards. If I combine and keep my Marriott account #, do I need to tell AmEx? I want future points to post properly. Before I combine, should I give AmEx my new SPG number? I haven’t seen any advice.
So maybe I can answer my own question. I called AmEx regarding my SPG Business card. The CSR told me that AmEx is handling everything on “the back end,” and newly earned Marriott points should post to the correct account. She also said that AmEx will be updating things on Friday of this week (Aug 24). At some point, new SPG credit cards that contain the updated account number will be mailed to existing cardmembers.
I went ahead and combined my new SPG account (the new 9 digit number) into my Marriott Rewards account. So now I only have one number, which is my old Marriott account number. The combination of points and nights went smoothly. I hope AmEx gets it right….
I am also showing the wrong number of elite nights and am listed as “platinum elite” when I should be Platinum Premier.
Thanks @Peerke for the link tip. Combined my SPG into my Marriott account. Like others said weird things – the Marriott app shows the new correct totals for Lifetime nights (762) & years of Platinum (16) – status is still not updated to Platinum Premier yet, via the web the Marriott site still shows the old numbers. The app does not show my 6 reservations but they do show on the web. When logging into the SPG account it now has the wording “The Account has been transfered to another Account” (which is correct). I’ll wait a few more days to let each system catch up to each other. I did take screen shots of the phone which shows the correct totals. Thanks again.
@BOB Sixteen Years Platinum. I hope they continue to take good care of you.
Hi Gary. Thank you for keeping on top of this.
I”ve been trying to find some answers about the account number details and impact of post-account mergers. Namely, will a property (SPG/M/RC) retain our stay history? That is, our history of stays and nights? As a SPG loyalist with 20-30+ stays at some Int’l hotels, will a future booking with a new SPG # or my old MR# include my stay history?
Will notes about my requests/preferences be kept, or is the server history cleaned, you know, like with a rag?
I”m sure many are curious if we adopt the new SPG # over the MR#, will that cast a shadow over requests (upgrades, SNAs, late check-outs…), where preferences might be given to a MR#? (Will these be viewed as the step-child in the program?)
For those of us (SPG 750+/10P) that will be grandfathered into MR LTPPE, will it make any difference which program # to use? I’m just hoping there is no bias by properties and CS agents.
That was fast (10 minutes), the online account now matches the correct app account information (nights and years), the only item remaining is the status update to Platinum Premier. I’ll have to check some old emails but I’m thinking that this may not be instant. Hope it goes well for others.
Update: Everything went decently seamlessly for me with the combining of accounts, except that the one reservation I had in my SPG account did not transfer over instantly as it claimed it would. I wanted to change the booking to points anyway, so I manually looked up the reservation with the confirmation number, cancelled it, and then rebooked it through the Marriott site.
IMO it’s a bunch of rigmarole for nothing. I had transferred all my points to Marriott long ago, except for 141 Starpoints due to their dumb “1000s only” rule. So now I must combine to get those last 423 MR points into my account! And who needs a brand-new 3rd account number anyway?!
I had the same issue with an SPG reservation. I called Marriott reservations. They in turn contacted SPG. I was told that the reservation is still valid, and I should allow a few days for it to flow into my Marriott account.
I don’t want to cancel and rebook. When I made the res, it cost 7000 SPG points per night. It’s a 5 night stay, so it was 28,000 SPG points (with the 5th night free). Now this same hotel is 35000 Marriott points per night. So I’ve got a pretty good deal going.
Well this is a bit of a balls-up. I can logon to Marriott.com and it shows my correct status and Marriott balance. If I logon to SPG however, it shows my Marriott balance and status – all my SPG points seem to have gone missing. It’s only 90,000 equivalent Marriott points but still annoying.
Stay away from Combining, it its a Cluster F*&!, Status is wrong, I lost my Marriott account number that I had for 30 years because the popup took place on SPG while booking a reservation. I am 90K points from life time platinum premier and now concerned how those points will credit since they have been ambiguous about lifetime points moving. I have already had one rep tell me that I will have to stay in Marriott properties only between now and EOY to have the points count toward my lifetime status. Marriott sucks
I hope they take care of this soon. I didn’t have to do anything to combine my accounts- but I have been issued a new number. As a Lifetime Platinum with SPG, I’m not exactly happy to be listed as “Platinum Elite.”
I’ll keep my eye on it, but I am worried about 2 reservations coming up this weekend. They’re with an SPG hotel and I have an SNA applied. With my number changing, I’m a bit wary. But it looks like I’m not the only one.
I worked to get that Lifetime Platinum Status; right now I’m mostly worried about that. And weren’t we supposed to receive triple the amount of points? My points changed but didn’t triple!
I know this is difficult for everyone, but I did think they’d be ready. That’s the optimist in me. I think it’s time to be a realist.
It looks all messed up. The points numbers are wrong and it says my last qualifying activity was in February 2019; and yes it uses the past tense to state that. When I look at my history it does correctly show my most recent points earning stay in Miami in July 2018. Luckily I don’t have any stays coming up immediately, and I can book away from Marriott for now until it all sorts itself out. I’m going to wait to combine accounts. As someone said, it’s an IT fail, and I’m going to go elsewhere for the time being.
I just did this on my account, and it worked reasonably well, except that my Marriott Status was downgraded from Platinum to Gold.
Actually, scratch that…missing a booking I made last night via SPG.
None of the “information” outlined by Marriott Insider in this FT post has been working.
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/marriott-starwood-ritz-carlton/1926286-travel-packages-update-2.html
People who requested refund using the web page, received emails to tell them to contact Reservation Dept, or that the system is having technical difficulty and it will take (unknown) time to get it resolved.
People who tried to book using the existing certs as Marriott Insider claims the lock down is no longer necessary because they have passed the “stress test” the past weekend, only to be met that cannot be done despite supervisors tried to help in some cases to absolutely no avail because system simply wont allow it, or met with uninformed (apparently internal memo has not reached the whole company, lol) agents said nothing can be done until Sept 19th.
The whole PR Ad Hoc Spin is just Spin. Customers being misled to act, only to waste hours of time on the phone and achieved nothing.
The shameful Marriott is getting even more so.
Still do not see the prompt with the opportunity to combine accounts when i login.
When is this option going to be available by?
Here is a post on FT that said Marriott originally would release this FAQ on Aug 20th to counteract the angry customers on the new mapping.
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/30108459-post6020.htmlhttps://www.flyertalk.com/forum/30108459-post6020.html
Somehow Marriott decided to change course not to use this. Instead later of the day, said thru several blog channels AND posted by Marriott Insider on FT around 5pm, on the current refund policy.
It is beyond bad that Marriott initially tried to give more spin to defend its conversion table is justifiable.
Someone in the highest office of the corporation finally has sensed the public outcry on the social media would cause more harm if Marriott does not reverse its course to make some remedy.
The whole ordeal just shows Marriott is trying everything to recoup its costs to acquire SPG in every way it felt it could get away with. Hence it kept everything opaque but let out numerous trial balloons to decide what its next action might be.
Talk about Corporate Greed.
Marriott is now leaking personal info on app… Opened it today to find someone else’s reservation which I almost cancelled in the initial confusion… Luckily I scrolled down and saw the name and realized what was happening or else they would’ve had to explain something to one annoyed Japanese businessman….
@ Alex_77W
When you said that ‘IT failures’ are “rather trivial programming issues” you definitely showed how ignorant you are of computer systems. Sure they had time to sort out the business rules but if you’ve ever worked in IT you’ll know that system migrations are never ‘trivial’… much more so for two loyalty programs that have maintained separate systems for years. Let’s just hope they take this few days of an opportunity to work out the kinks.
Hi i have another issue regarding my memebership, i got 2 numbers and i wish to mirg them so i look forward your kind help to do.
please i need to get on touch to do.