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Marriott’s Timeshare Business Buys Hyatt Timeshares and the Starwood Timeshares Marriott Didn’t Want

by Gary Leff

aerial beach ocean shot
Apr 30 2018

Shortly before Starwood announced a deal to be acquired by Marriott it agreed to spin off its timeshare business into a separate company, Vistana, which it sold to Interactive Leisure Group or ILG. ILG now holds the vacation ownership businesses of Hyatt, Sheraton and Westin.

Marriott Vacations is now buying Interactive Leisure Group for $4.7 billion. So an affiliate of Marriott will wind up owning the Starwood timeshare business Marriott itself was believed not to want two and a half years ago as well as Hyatt’s timeshare business.

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This May Be the Single Greatest Use of Rewards Points, Ever

by Gary Leff

woman in packers election area
Apr 29 2018

Whether it’s Dan Eleff spending a million Starpoints to throw out the first pitch in game 7 of the World Series where his hometown Indians are playing or Pizza in Motion using points so his wife could have tennis lessons from Andre Agassi there are things you can do – worthwhile things – with points that may be better for you than just travel.

And Ed Pizzarello shares a video of Cliff Yow announcing an NFL draft pick.

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Starwood Lifetime Elites Petition Marriott for Better Treatment

by Gary Leff

hotel room
Apr 24 2018

One of the aspects of Marriott’s announced new program that seems to annoy Starwood’s most loyal customers the most isn’t even where something is being taken away from them.

Under the new program all current lifetime elites keep their current lifetime status, even though the new program is going to have tougher requirements than the Starwood program did to earn that status.

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Marriott Releases New Program Award Pricing for Hotels in Several Cities

by Gary Leff

hotel stairs
Apr 23 2018

In the new Marriott loyalty program they’ve largely taken the better Starwood elite program and the better Marriott earn and burn proposition — however Starwood members won’t see exactly what they’ve come to expect on the Marriott side and and Marriott members have seemed likely to experience some devaluation of points.

Marriott’s CEO says they’re making the program less expensive for hotels. That’s created a pretty strong starting point to assume that earning and redeeming points couldn’t offer quite as good a value as before.

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