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.
Despite some information out there to the contrary — you can book award rooms now to lock in availability, and then get any points price difference for the same room back in late summer or fall if the points price of the hotel drops. And that’s true even if the hotel is sold out or is sold out of standard rooms.
Marriott offers ‘travel packages‘ where you redeem points for airline miles and a seven night hotel stay (there are also 5 night packages, intended for timeshare owners, these have become tougher to get if you aren’t a timeshare owner).
The value here is that you get transfers of points to miles at a rate that’s good enough you’re more or less getting a free hotel stay thrown in.
I’m seeing a ton of coverage of Marriott’s new award chart lauding the top points price of the most expensive hotels. For instance, Dan’s Deals: wrote AMAZING! Marriott’s New Award Chart Is A Dream Come True For Aspirational Hotels. This is indeed good news, but it needs to be tempered.
In many cases this won’t actually be a price cut of two-thirds like it appears at first glance.
Marriott has finally released hotel category assignments, letting us know the redemption pricing of hotels starting sometime in August. Hotels only received what category they’d be assigned to two weeks ago.
They’re highlighting that “Nearly 70 percent of all participating hotels can be redeemed for the same or fewer points.” That doesn’t actually sound good to me, though they point out 52% of hotels go down in price while 31% go up which is a little better.
We were promised these hotel brands would offer Platinum breakfast benefits. They don’t. They offer a food and beverage credit, which can be used any time during a stay.
That credit won’t cover breakfast at all of their properties, but the news isn’t as bad as it appeared at first — Marriott is updating their chart, which suggested the credit would be only once per stay rather than once per day (for the member and guest).
Marriott’s program is about cost savings for hotels. CEO Arne Sorenson touted this in the chain’s earnings call earlier this year, noting that “loyalty rates have been reduced [to hotels] already twice and they will be reduced a third time” and several changes are helping the chain drive down those costs.
Arne Sorenson thinks Marriott can out-Airbnb Airbnb by offering consistency, products, and service. His daughter tried an Airbnb once and assures him there’s nothing to worry about there.
If this is a growing piece of the market, Marriott needs to be in it. And they think that they can leverage their loyalty program to make it more attractive to customers.
Loyalty has two primary components: recognition and reward. That’s your elite program and your earn and burn proposition.
Hotel programs are tough to compare because you earn a different number of points per dollar spent, and redemptions vary wildly as well — the most expensive Hyatt redemption is 30,000 points while the most expensive Hilton redemption costs 95,000. We can normalize that by looking at the number of points earned, and the value of each point.
Marriott’s legacy program offered lifetime 75 night elite status, and those who already achieved that status in the Marriott program, or who achieve it through Marriott-only activity by the end of the year, get to keep it. Starwood elites weren’t going to be given that opportunity.
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 »
