Tag Archives for marriott.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
Th egregious award cancellation rules at the St. Regis Aspen — $1000 per night plus tax if your flight cancels and you show up late — deserves as much attention and ridicule as possible.
arriott is no worse than it used to be, except for IT issues that seem to be gradually getting sorted but remain frustrating. Starwood properties are mostly the same, although with lower points redemption prices at the best properties come more restrictions on availability.
Eventually we should see improvements in Marriott availability, compared to what we have seen in the past, starting next year with fewer ‘high demand dates’ at some hotels. Perhaps Flueck’s commitment that we’ll reach the Starwood model of availability for legacy Marriott will come to pass in the future as well.
Marriott CEO Arne Sorenson famously dismissed customer frustrations with his chain’s IT failures and problems delivering promised benefits as ‘noise around the edges.’
During Marriott’s earnings call the CEO addressed the new name for the loyalty program, how he sees it as part of the chain’s strategy, and whether hotels are frustrated.
I’ve continued pressing Marriott for a timeline, how long it will take customers who have submitted even more information to them to find out if their data was part of the breach? They’ve finally shared Thirty. Days. And that’s a ‘goal’. They want you to know they are not breaking the law (‘consistent with regulatory expectations’) which is apparently their standard for customer service.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
I’m not sure why Marriott didn’t announce a promotion to coincide with the launch of their new program name, why they are spending money on printing and postage to announce the promotion, or why they’ve failed to get up the promotion website that they’re mailing members about — other than to say of course that’s what happened.
Marriott let me know that the hack of their systems released my unencrypted passport number and unencrypted credit card number. Even this information isn’t helpful because they don’t let me know which number or whether or not it’s expired.
The data breach compromised 383 million records including 5.25 million unencrypted passport numbers and 8.6 million payment cards. Marriott claims most credit cards were expired which means they have that information, but even though they’re telling me my credit card number was compromised they aren’t telling me the expiration date of the card.
Significant cash deposits are being required by some Marriott properties when booking an award. They say they’ll charge you cash up front and give it back at the end of your stay.
What’s more these are very poorly disclosed during the booking process, the credit card charges would come as a complete surprise to most people.
If you have the Marriott Bonvoy American Express Card you might not even know it because you still think of it as the Starwood Preferred Guest American Express Card — and your card still says SPG on it.
One of the biggest criticisms of the new program is that the value of points earned via credit card is one third less than Starwood Amex cardmembers are accustomed to. They’ve solved that through the rest of the year.
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 »
