Tag Archives for marriott.
The new brand is not yet named but internal project names are often revealing, and this one is “currently being referred to as Project MidX Studios.”
They literally tell you the new chain is mid.
A man booked a room with someone else’s Marriott Bonvoy points. The member received the confirmation email from Marriott, contacted the police, and that man was arrested on the spot in Naples, Florida!
Assigned personal ambassadors will be reaching out to Ambassador members in June, as in the past assigned based on their language speaking preference and home time zone. Many former Ambassadors have returned, apparently, and Marriott will accept requests now to Ambassador Services to be matched the person previously assigned.
Marriott is going to make a major shift this month in how it displays prices on its website, and to its English language mobile app. The first and most prominent price for a hotel that Marriott displays will be the price inclusive of resort or destination fees so when you search the Marriott website you won’t be duped into thinking a hotel is cheaper than it is, only to see disclosure of a higher price at check-out.
Marriott made it harder and harder to use your points. Some readers thought they just wanted to make it difficult to use your points so that you wouldn’t but that isn’t actually true. The people at Marriott worried about fraud (especially after major data breaches at the chain) gained the upper hand over anyone that cared about the loyalty of their best customers trying to use their points.
The last thing I ever want when redeeming points for my wife’s travel, though, is worrying over whether or not she’ll be able to check in!
It’s the return of 5 Marriott nights worth up to 250,000 points in total after $5,000 spend within the first three months of account opening for the Chase Marriott Bonvoy Boundless card.
That’s the best offer we’ve seen for this card, and it’s been around a couple of times. It’s much better than normal ‘elevated’ offers of 100,000 points or 3 reward nights.
In 2021 Marriott entered into a settlement with Pennsylvania over resort fees, promising to reform its practices. Despite the legally-binding commitment they didn’t actually do it. They received extensions, but still didn’t come into compliance. Now they’re being fined $225,000 and a court order requires them to comply by May 15.
The Marriott Key Bridge was the second Marriott hotel ever, and was the oldest Marriott hotel when it closed in July 2021.
Originally opened in 1959 as the Key Bridge Motor Inn, it was located in Rosslyn just across the river from Washington D.C. It featured a fantastic view, as a result, and in its history hosted both Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. In recent times it played host to the homeless.
When Marriott launched the Bonvoy program in 2018 the most expensive redemption for any hotel was 60,000 points. Then they introduced ‘high and low season’ pricing and a new more expensive category 8, pushing up the most expensive reward to 100,000 points.
A year ago they abolished award charts altogether and promised only that price increases would be muted in the first year of the new system. Now that the first year has passed, gloves and constraints are off, and properties can cost up to 150,000 points per night.
The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) was recently held at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, and one conference goer reported on TripAdvisor that they failed to pay a bar tab. Oops!
How they report the hotel handled it, though, is concerning.
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 »
