Tag Archives for marriott bonvoy.
Marriott charges resort fees on supposedly free nights. When you use your points you still have a cash co-pay or ‘loyalty tax.’ Neither Hilton nor Hyatt does this. And these resort fees can be $99 per night, plus tax, or even more.
Most Bonvoy members don’t learn there’s a fee to redeem their points until they’ve stayed with the chain, spent time in the program, and accumulated enough points to be ready to redeem. That’s why it’s a loyalty tax.
I have an upcoming award stay at a Marriott property, and I received a note from the hotel warning me that if I don’t show up on the day scheduled, and haven’t cancelled at least a day in advance, they’ll charge me over $2000 cash.
If your flight diverts on the way to this award stay and you can’t check in as scheduled, call your mortgage broker for a second or third lien – quick!
Any time Marriott doesn’t devalue its program that’s a good thing. Annual category creep has worked against you for many years, not just under Bonvoy but years earlier too. However as a result of the pandemic and how long it’s lasted we should see a majority of hotels dropping in category.
Marriott has around 7500 hotels in its portfolio. Only about 100 hotels are dropping in category – after the biggest drop in average daily room rate we’ve seen in history. Rooms cost less and Marriott’s revenue-based program should charge you fewer points. They shouldn’t just be offering ‘low season’ rates as a promotion, they should be offering those year round. And the base category of most hotels should be lower than when the hotel business was at its peak in 2019.
When Marriott acquired Starwood they also acquired the Ambassador program which offered a single point of contact for the chain’s top customers, to make reservations, interface with hotels on requests, and act as a concierge more broadly.
First Marriott had mass layoffs of concierges. Now they’ve decided emails to individual concierges can no longer be answered – everything goes into a single customer service pool.
Marriott has continued to promote its elite benefit guarantees despite suspending them during the pandemic. Fortunately the cash guarantee compensation is back for when hotels fail to deliver specific promised benefits.
The Ritz-Carlton Maldives presidential suite runs 4.3 million Marriott points per night, though standard villas are better value. Some hotels offer premium room redemptions for more points, but those are generally going to give you about half a cent per point.
Today the $450 annual fee Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant offers 2 points per dollar (plus 3x at restaurants and airlines and 6 points at Marriotts); Platinum status after $75,000 spent each year; a $300 Marriott credit; Priority Pass Select; and an annual free night up to 50,000 points. They’re evaluating annual fees for this card up to $650 or even $750, but here’s what they’d offer.
They’re surveying a new, lower fee product too.
Marriott has devalued Bonvoy points for booking Homes and Villas redemptions. Marriott has a curated competitor to Airbnb, Bonvoy is one of the key selling points against this behemoth competitor with a huge head start in the space. But Marriott has chosen to erode its advantage.
Put another way, given broader devaluations in the program over the past couple of years, Marriott is just playing catchup adjusting down the value of points for homesharing stays.
Marriott is offering about 90% of their 7500 hotels at off peak redemption prices for bookings made by December 14 and stays through February 28, 2021.
A Marriott spokesperson says “Of the 90% of properties offering solely off-peak rates, about two—thirds of those properties had previously been offering a mix of rates during the promotional stay period.” And that just shows that Bonvoy has been gouging members for redemptions at a majority of its hotels.
Marriott announced that Free Night Awards that were originally supposed to expire in 2020 or that will expire before July 31, 2021, will have their expiration date extended to August 1, 2021. In addition Marriott had previously said they wouldn’t expire any points due to account inactivity until February 1, 2021. That’s been extended to August 1, 2021 as well.
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 »
