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.
Marriott’s new loyalty program has launched, but as of this writing they’re still working through the IT. They told us to expect things to be down throughout Saturday. If things work on Sunday I’ll be impressed.
Compared to what might have happened I still think that the new Marriott program is about the best we could possibly have hoped for or expected. It’s stapling some version of the Starwood elite program onto some version of the Marriott redemption program (‘the best of both worlds’) along with some devaluation of each.
Bibles have been in hotel rooms for over 100 years, dating back at least to 1908 at the Superior Hotel in Superior, Montana. The Gideons, which was formed by two men sharing a hotel room in 1898, give them away for free.
The average life of a hotel room bible is six years. Guests take them, even though they say ‘thou shalt not steal’ inside.
Since announcing the new Marriott program in April there’s been inconsistent information about breakfast, about lounge access, and about redemptions for Starwood properties that previously charged double points compared to the standard award chart.
They haven’t been ready for prime time for instance they haven’t shared what would happen with travel packages redeemed prior to the start of the new program but where award certificates hadn’t yet been used for a reservation. And they hadn’t even published the terms and conditions for the new program. They don’t plan to share those things until the program launch on August 18.
Existing travel packages have been an outstanding questions. Members who redeem for a travel package, transfer points to miles, and hold onto the hotel stay certificate to use later have wondered ‘since Marriott’s award charts are changing, and my certificates are for a specific redemption category, what’s going to happen? what hotels will I be able to use them for?’
Marriott is sharing that travel packages are going to be adjusted so that they will be used on ‘similarly valued’ hotel categories.
Marriott is launching a new program August 18th which will be the same for all of Marriott Rewards, Starwood Preferred Guest, and Ritz-Carlton Rewards.
Accessing frequent guest accounts, and even making reservations, is expected to be offline most of that day. In addition Marriott Rewards and Ritz-Carlton Rewards accounts may be unavailable during overnight hours between now and the 18th. These overnight outages shouldn’t affect Starwood accounts.
Starting August 18th though you won’t be able to use previous travel package redemptions for a month.
American Express tells me that their Membership Rewards program will be adding Aer Lingus as a 1:1 points transfer “at the end of this month.”
Here’s what that will mean for your redemptions
Three months ago Marriott shared details on how they’d be bringing their three loyalty programs together with Marriott Rewards, Ritz-Carlton Rewards, and Starwood Preferred Guest all operating on a single platform and single set of rules starting in August.
The new Marriott program launches August 18. I spoke with David Flueck, Marriott’s Senior Vice President of Global Loyalty, on Tuesday to talk about the transition and get several more questions answers about what to expect.
On a mission to recover radioactive materials, two Department of Energy employees from the Idaho National Laboratory drove to San Antonio. Materials had been loaned to a private research lab, and their job was to get it back and transport it security to a government facility.
They brought with them specialized radiation detectors. And to calibrate the detectors they have to bring along some plutonium, too, and also cesium. These are the materials used in nuclear weapons or dirty bombs.
Marriott is losing the St. Regis, W, and Westin in Dubai all at once. That’s a one-third hit to the number of legacy Starwood rooms in Dubai, including the same owner pulling the St Regis Habtoor Polo Resort and Spa in recent days.
Dubai was one of Starwood’s most important markets, they had a legacy Emirates partnership similar to their Delta partnership in the US and a UAE co-brand credit card.
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 »
