Tag Archives for marriott.
Marriott launched its new loyalty program August 18, 2018 aligning the benefits of Marriott Rewards, Starwood Preferred Guest, and Ritz-Carlton Rewards. All accounts were moved over from the Starwood platform to Marriott.
However they kept all 3 program names, even though there were no longer differences between the programs. This has to do with contractual obligations. For members all that was left to wait for was the new program name.
News and notes from around the interweb: Looks like all your can jet private flight app company JetSmarter is imploding. In the beginning they offered amazing deals (and burned tremendous cash). I only ever used them when they gave free trial memberships to customers with elite status and big mileage balances. The LAX Tom Bradley Terminal finally has PreCheck Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, on flying coach: When speaking to the Royal Aircraft Association back in 2002, Prince Philip commented on the British royal family’s air travel conditions. “If you travel as much as we do, you appreciate the improvements in aircraft design of less noise and more comfort,” he said, “provided you don’t travel in something called economy class, which sounds ghastly.” Pan Am 103: Robert Mueller’s 30 year search for justice bet you…
Hotel loyalty programs face a unique challenge that airlines don’t. Airlines set the rules and provide the product directly. Hotels have to get properties which are often owned and even managed separately to comply, with benefits like upgrades delivered consistently by individual employees at a front desk perhaps thousands of miles away. They rely on individual hotels and even employees to comply.
Embedded in a loyalty program as well is a philosophy of how to treat guests redeeming their points.
Marriott has provided additional information on their massive data breach. We’re supposed to be comforted that it’s ‘only’ 383 million and not 500 million records that were accessed.
Marriott still hasn’t told us anything about their notes on your as as a customer that were taken.
Unfortunately they’re investing in bad marketing when they need to be investing in fixing their IT — merged accounts that still aren’t right, elite status trackers that say members need only 75 nights for Ambassador status, and missing 75 night elite benefit options.
And if they are really that short of ideas for where to invest these dollars, to deliver strong branding, they might try putting the money into training customer service agents to give out accurate information.
The JW Marriott Guanacaste Resort published a policy that they would not upgrade Marriott Platinum members to suites despite terms and conditions of the program saying Platinums are entitled to suite upgrades if available.
There are always going to be hotels that are more generous than others with respect to elite benefits. However this wasn’t just a non-compliant hotel, their policy not to comply was explicitly outlined on the Marriott website and in the Marriott app.
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.
Yesterday Mark Ostermann wrote that Marriott travel packages can no longer be cancelled for a partial points refund.
I wanted to find out whether that was an(other) unannounced negative change or a(nother) case of wrong information from Marriott customer service. It turns out it was bad information from a customer service representative.
Good marketing is something that all of us welcome: useful information that connects us with something we actually need or want, and even better information that comes to us right when we want it, to help us make a decision.
When someone says they don’t like marketing what they mean is they don’t like bad marketing. They don’t like receiving information that isn’t relevant to them, that doesn’t speak to them in their language, that isn’t what they’re interested in.
The world is full of bad marketing.
With all of the problems that Marriott has had launching their new program and integrating 3 loyalty programs into one, many customers are frustrated. Starwood members in particular have been disappointed by the customer service standard over the phone with Marriott, and with the way many Marriott properties are implementing the benefits that have been promised. In short, Marriott has failed to deliver.
Two high profile blogs take issue with my argument that as much of a hash as Marriott has made at things, the grass isn’t greener at Hilton Honors. They’re wrong.
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 »
