Tag Archives for marriott.
Last fall I found several Marriott hotels sell their rooms for less on Airbnb than at Marriott.com. Marriott isn’t ok with this and cracked down on the specific properties I noted, but the practice continues and one guest even managed a successful best rate guarantee against an Airbnb listing.
Marriott’s Edition brand doesn’t have to provide elite members with breakfast. However all Marriott hotels have to provide guests staying on points the same benefits as guests on paid rates.
The Edition in Bodrum, Turkey is a Bonvoy member favorite. It’s also one of the hotels where awards were devalued the most when Marriott went to dynamic pricing.
One way that travel changed during the pandemic which will mean more business travel and not less is that companies doing more work from home will need to bring employees together for team building, culture sessions, and just to get everyone on the same page. Employees that formerly worked entirely in-office become business travelers quarterly, semi-annually or at least once a year.
Walmart has a new hotel opening. And the Walmart hotel is going to be an AC by Marriott, opening summer 2024.
You’re not a hotel chain’s customer, you’re the product. They sell your eyeballs to the hotel owners that pay them fees to use the brand. That’s why the head of Diamondrock Hospitality, a large hotel owner, calls Marriott Bonvoy members “leads”.
Marriott is offering a third anniversary bonus of 30,000 points for bookings made through its Homes & Villas network from today through Wednesday, May 18. The bonus requires a stay of 5 nights or more between June 1, 2022 and December 31, 2022. It stacks with a $100 rebate Chase Offer that many readers should be eligible for.
As part of Marriott’s move to dynamic pricing of free reward nights which raises award pricing, but will be worse next year, Bonvoy now allows you to add up to 15,000 points when redeeming a free night certificate.
This makes certificates fare more useful, but was done more for Marriott’s Chase and American Express relationships than for you.
Hotels frequently offer to store luggage when a guest arrives too early to check in, or when they aren’t leaving town until after check-out time. Some bigger hotels even charge for this. I’d never trust belongings that matter to a hotel’s luggage storage room, and you shouldn’t either.
Marriott should take the position that guests and their belongings are safe at their hotels and it isn’t appropriate for a hotel to dispute liability when giving away a guest’s belongings and the hotel’s own video demonstrates they did it.
I wouldn’t trust the Marriott Marquis San Francisco with my belongings, but I also wouldn’t trust them in my guestroom either.
Marriott did what they said they would do – limit the carnage in the first year, in much the same way they over-indexed Bonvoy value when the program first launched (they waited to add a higher tier category and launch peak and off peak pricing, even though they announced it as their plan).
The playbook is ‘announce a negative change but wait to fully implement it’ so everyone looks at the new program and says “great!” or “not so bad!” before it gets worse. We should believe Marriott when they say next year will be worse!
Ritz-Carlton Reserve is finally joining Marriott Bonvoy. While Ritz-Carlton has been part of the program, the 5 ‘Reserve’ properties have not. That has now changed.
Elite benefits, and redemption pricing, are different than you’ll find elsewhere in the program.
There’s a lot of words in hospitality that people get wrong all the time. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard people refer to American A-Advantage, or A-Mex. But it never occurred to me that I’ve been pronouncing Marriott wrong for the last 20 years or longer.
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 »
