marriott

Tag Archives for marriott.

Marriott’s Twitter Team Can’t Fathom Anyone Complimenting Bonvoy on Social Media

by Gary Leff

outside marriott hotel
Aug 19 2019

Twitter used to be the “go-to” way of getting personalized customer service, and with some brands it still is. Many companies assign super competent agents to deal with twitter, and empower them to cut through bureaucracy to solve problems.

Not all do however. And some just follow the ‘first rule of social media’ which is to try to get customers to stop blasting the company as quickly as possible. The easiest way to do that is to get the customer to ‘take it to DM’.

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Marriott Travel Packages Finally Have a Use Case With Peak Season Awards

by Gary Leff

outside marriott hotel
Aug 15 2019

Marriott travel packages used to be the best value in the program, combining hotel stays with airline miles transfers. The new program gutted the value of Marriott travel packages. It seems though that this may have been in anticipation of peak season award pricing which is another step towards Marriott’s cost containment efforts, and driving the program towards delivering consistent average value on each stay rather than having peaks and valleys (which create opportunity for exceptional value). Bonvoy confirms to me that Marriott travel packages do not have restrictions on use during peak nights. Marriott reward night certificates can be used for their permitted category whether the standard room redemption is for off season, standard or peak season. As a result you get the most value during peak season. There’s a whole lot more value…

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Marriott Rolls Out High/Low Season Award Pricing Next Month Along With Other Changes

by Gary Leff

outside marriott hotel
Aug 15 2019

When Marriott first announced their new program they told us they’d be adding a new highest redemption category 8 and also adding peak and off peak pricing for 2019. They put off category 8 until March but postponed peak and off peak pricing even further.

They’ve been silent on when to expect it until now, giving us a month’s notice before the new top redemption price could go as high as 100,000 points per night. Effective September 14th they’re making some other changes to the program as well.

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Make a Green Choice Program Still Generating Protests By Marriott Housekeepers

by Gary Leff

marriott poster
Aug 07 2019

Back in the fall when Marriott was facing housekeeping strikes, guests were getting flyers under their doors protesting the Make a Green Choice program.

Marriott encourages you to fly out and visit their hotels, eat beef in the restaurant, extend your stay by flying your family out too, but what you’re really doing that’s harming the environment is having your room tidied. I’ve always found it odd that a hotel chain promotes the idea that their housekeepers are bad for the environment.

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Marriott Brings Back Your World Rewards, Extra Points Earning and Elite Recognition With Emirates

by Gary Leff

private airplane bar
Jul 15 2019

The recognition benefits here aren’t strong, what’s useful is 4 p.m. late checkout with Marriott and and additional points earning when spending money with the other partner.

What’s significant is to see the continued expansion (in this case return of) the model of rewarding and recognizing elites of another brand in order to get access to their customers, much as American and Hyatt are now doing with their partnership.

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Marriott’s CEO Defends Resort Fees, Says They’re Good For You

by Gary Leff

art installation
Jul 14 2019

Washington DC is suing Marriott over its resort fees. “Resort fees” are extra charges, on top of a room rate, that aren’t optional. In other words they’re part of the price of a room, but the hotel advertises a lower price instead. That’s on face deceptive.

Marriott CEO Arne Sorenson, who thinks you have to enter a passport number to make a reservation at Marriott.com (so their unprecedented data breach was just the result of saving information for your booking convenience) and who thinks problems with the Bonvoy program were just “noise around the edges” gave an interview where he defended the undefendable resort fee. Naturally he did so disingenuously.

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