Monday news broke that Marriott is acquiring Starwood.
The deal may make sense for Marriott, at least there’s a chance it’s a good deal, because Marriott has strength both in full service and select service and in the United States while Starwood has a global footprint (they are a smaller company but in more countries than Marriott) with iconic hotels.
W Times Square
Marriott Rewards members will gain access to a whole host of hotels where they’ll actually want to spend their points – whereas for the most part they have places now that they can sleep, they’ll have Starwood’s hotels where they’ll want to stay.
Starwood members on the other hand have significant consternation. Starwood Platinums have chosen to be loyal to the chain for a reason. One rarely finds oneself loyal to Starwood, Hyatt, or a smaller chain by accident. It’s the particular benefits and value proposition that appeal to the customer, so a merger with mega-Marriott leaves open the likelihood that the unique value proposition will be eroded.
- It may ultimately get swallowed up, folded into Marriott Rewards
- Marriott executives, with a different philosophy and culture, will be in charge — at least at the top
- A chain the size of Marriott may not need to go to the lengths to convince guests to make the choice to stay, and given their size it may be more unwieldly to deliver customized benefits.
W Union Square
So it’s not exactly reassuring to see Marriott’s CEO describing the future of Starwood thusly:
Skift: Is the goal to eventually dissolve the Starwood name?
Sorenson: You know, I don’t know about that. Starwood is used in Starwood Preferred Guest [program], probably the one place it shows up in a customer-facing way. We’ll need to assess the value associated with the use of that word, and we might well need it in some way.
Yes, the future of Starwood is that they might need the name. In some way. Sigh.
No doubt it’s why you get a new piece in the New York Times, Marriott Merger Has Starwood Lovers Nervous.
Starwood customers are right to worry, says Gary Leff, who writes the View From the Wing blog, about travel reward programs, because the two companies have fundamentally different business models. In the title of his blog post about the merger, he declared it’s “time to start gnashing teeth.”
“In general, the smaller programs are ones that treat elites better,” said Mr. Leff, who maintains upper-tier elite status with Starwood, Hyatt and Hilton. “It’s not hard to just fall out of an airplane into a Marriott. You have to make a choice to be loyal to Starwood.”
…Mr. Walters comforted himself by noting that Marriott at least owns Ritz-Carlton, “which I guess is good,” though Mr. Leff contends many Ritz-Carltons are “resort factories” lacking the distinctive touches of Starwood’s top properties.
“Ritz Carlton Grand Cayman, if you don’t put your book down on a beach chair at 8 a.m., you’re in the fifth row back from the beach,” Mr. Leff said. “They’re not unique, special places.” Speaking of unique, Mr. Leff noted he is looking forward to a planned stay at Al Maha, a Starwood Luxury Collection resort in Dubai, in part because it offers falconry.
But there’s no reason to panic, at least right away, I don’t expect that Really Bad Things will happen until 2017 at least.
Mr. Leff said he suspected that they had not yet decided what they would do and that merging Marriott Rewards with Starwood Preferred Guest would be a significant and time-consuming information technology challenge. He doubts customers will experience changes to their benefits before 2017 at the earliest.
St. Regis Bali
I have been working on the goal to earn lifetime Platinum status with SPG I am a few years away, I already have lifetime gold which frankly is not a big deal, you can get that with a credit card. Now the question is to I switch my commitment to someone like Hyatt, I was hopeful the Hyatt and SPG companies would have been the merger choice. That would have been great. Marriott is my least favorite chain.
It sounds as if he meant to say that there are no Starwood branded hotels. Almost like Mercedes-Benz drivers have no afinity to Daimler.
Was the sole purpose of this blog entry to humble brag that you were in the NYT?
Gary,
No one cares you were quoted in nyt. No one.
I think most of us as SPG’s upper tier members have a right to be concerned as Marriott wouldn’t be a hotel of CHOICE for us… I personally have only stayed at a Marriott due to the lack of SPG presence or because the client/conference pays for Marriott. Their products are lackluster and there is NEVER anything special about a Marriott stay
I am trying to think as a Plat for 2016 if it makes sense for me to try and requalify for Plat in 2016 again since the benefits might be stripped completely. I dont want to get stuck with devalued points once they drop the hammer either. SPG Amex was one of my top go to cards. That will cost Amex a ton of my card volume.
It takes real chutzpah to cite as a source to legitimatize your opinion an article that quotes your own self!
@bob actually i wrote the post (yesterday) before the New York Times piece came out, I added reference to it as an afterthought. (I do post many of my media clippings on my personal blog, though, just like I did when it was only family that read it.)
Why would you think anything good will come out of this? Haven’t you learned from past mergers? The corporations value their profits, not customers.
@LR. Apparently you care enough to comment! Lol! If you don’t like to read what Gary has to say, why do you follow this site? I, for one, find a lot of things interesting here, including his insight about where SPG is going.
I agree it’s stupid to call someone out for pointing to national press mentioning them on their personal blog.
However I also agree that it’s not exactly “sourcing” complimentary or additional information to quote the NYT quoting you.
I would just recommend all of you to read the comments to that NYT article that Gary links.
Although he is cited by the author, most of the comments appropriately and effectively skewer Gary and “Mr. Walters, IMHO, as they come across as a couple of elitist snobs.
‘
Although, I don’t think Gary is so craven, he opened himself up to such vitriol with the comments that he offered to the author of that article.
I’ve got 12 years as Platinum, but only 440 nights. Was counting on the whole of next year to move me up to Lifetime Platinum (500 night minimum), but now this is beginning to look un-doable. I suspect Marriott will make the unfortunate decision to terminate SPG halfway through the year, and while they might let us keep some “lifetime” status, I suspect they’re not savvy enough to take folks like me and let me “blend” my almost-lifetime-top-tier status with my past (and future, they hope) Marriott stays.
Obviously, this would be good for them (retaining us), but they’ll get all kinds of blowback from bean counters, who minimize and begrudge anything like a loyalty perk.
In fact, I shouldn’t be surprised if Marriott re-flags all sorts of former Starwood properties, and basically lowers the standards to its level. But we shall see. It’s been fun while it lasted. Got a suite upgrade last night and have four more to burn before the end of the year.
Gary, I, for one, was glad to see your comments in this morning’s NYT. We can always hope that some rational manager looks at us, with our months each year in hotels, and thinks how special SPG has been and how loyalty actually works, so when he next downturn comes, he isn’t facing REVPAR figures that sink with every competitor’s sale. But I fear Marriott is not that concerned with next year, or next decade.
There is no point to this post at all other than to (a) let us know that @Gary was quoted in NYT and (b) to push the bogus notion that SPG was (notice the past tense) a much more rewarding program than Marriott Rewards. The truth, however, is that most reputable surveys have consistently ranked Marriott Rewards top or near there in customer satisfaction, while SPG has ranked next to or dead last. Moreover, Marriott Rewards offers a much better value in terms of spend per free night (i.e. cheaper awards) than SPG, whose awards were the highest priced in the business. Weaker programs get weeded out so SPG is out…
I would not despair at all, SST.
I am sure that Marriott will take those 440 nights and use them in formulating your place in their own lifetime program.
To be sure, 500 nights will qualify you appropriately as a Marriott Gold member, and inasmuch as reward nights did not count toward the lifetime elite night count in Marriott until earlier this month, you might see a subtraction from those 440 night that you have amassed, but should you continue forward, you will no doubt reach 500 nights in no time flat, and perhaps 750 soon enough to qualify you as a Lifetime Platinum elite in Marriott’s program.
After all, it would be a slap in the face to those elite’s in Marriott’s program to jump you ahead of them who have been diligently working toward such lifetime status to leapfrog you ahead of them with less “earned” nights in the program. Moreover, as noted above, there are twice as many members in Marriott Rewards than SPG.
Furthermore, I have read posts that said that if Marriott were “smart,” they would do just that, in order to ensure SPG elite’s continued “loyalty.”
I say to what?
To HHonors which those members have no history with to any great degree and which their nights/points will not be transferred to?
To, IHG? Same problem.
To Hyatt? Same problem and a smaller footprint?
Nope,
Marriott’s best move would be to soft-land SPG Platinum folks temporary like status in Marriott Rewards — as they did with Canada’s Delta hotels frequency program — and to carry over the nights earned in SPG with appropriate qualifications.
Obviously, some adjustment multiplier will have to me made with respect to SPG points — somewhere between a 2 points – 3 points multiplier, but not the 5 points that some have suggested.
SPG elites who are unhappy with the arrangement can be told to pound sand and go elsewhere, but then again, where is elsewhere, anyway?
@DCS you just don’t like Starwood for some reason.
@SST I am quite sure that Marriott will find a way to honor the lifetime benefits earned by SPG members. And I am pretty confident that the rules for earning it will not change in 2016.
@DCS in your usual dogmatic nonsense, you fail to realize that program != company
@UA-NYC — And your point is exactly what? SPG is l neither a better company nor a better program than Marriott’s equivalent. After all, it is the latter that’s swallowed the former (company and program).
NY Times: “Renowned travel blogger, Gary Leff, believes 3*2 equals 7. Gary says: ‘I really believe 3*2 equals 7.'”
Gary Leff’s blog: “3*2 equals 7. What’s the proof? It was in the NY Times.”
It’s beyond silly and tacky to continually post your news clippings in your blog.
Here’s a little thought experiment, take your favorite starwood hotel and slap a Marriott logo on it. Does it change your experience? Certainly so when it comes to your check-in s and check outs and how much you paid, but you’d be dealing with the same people, facilities, etc.
To help illustrate my point, I suggest that Gary would be the first person to wax poetic about the Cayman
@Gary — I simply do not believe that SPG was as good as most travel bloggers made it out to be. Contrary to your claim in the NYT piece, there is simply no credible evidence to support the oft heard canard that small programs a more rewarding than large ones. Other than that I am an equal opportunity opportunist who goes with “value”, wherever I can find it. When it comes to value, only bloggers with loads of starpoints find any at Starwood, which offers the least of it relative to any major program…by far. Your own math has shown this although you have chosen to understate it…
G’day!
DCS — Have to slightly disagree with you on something you wrote:
“only bloggers with loads of starpoints find any at Starwood, which offers the least of it relative to any major program…by far.”
It is not only bloggers with loads of SPG points, it is many SPG Platinum Elites with Starpoints — loads or otherwise — who are whining about principally their loss of suite upgrades.
Of course, they dress it up or cover it about the 4PM check-out, but as a Platinum elite @ Marriott I usually have received 2 PM checkout when requested, and I daresay, that they could selflessly “get by” with such a “hardship.”
By the way, if you wish to learn more of Mr. Strawberry Chocolate Mouse, Charlie Walters, you can!
Seems he will be starring in his own “Reality TV Show” (naturally, of course), and perhaps it will go into excruciating detail over the trials and tribulations concerning his difficult Hollywood, CA (naturally, of course) life and lifestyle!
http://www.twincities.com/entertainment/ci_27298265/st-paul-grad-attempts-friends-lovers-move-national
@HORACE — Not much of a disagreement. In may years as a HH Diamond, not a single time have I been denied a late checkout request. Three years in a row, I was approved for a 6pm checkout at Hilton Buenos Aires because my UA flight out of there left at 9pm and it made little sense for me to checkout at noon. Last month at Hilton Sandton in JNB, I was approved for a 5pm checkout without a fuss.
I simply do not believe that “guaranteed” late checkout is a distinguishing feature among hotel loyalty programs, most of which would do their best to approve a legitimate request from a top elite…
@DCS — Totally agree.
This is not about late check-out, although they like to use this as a smoke-screen.
This is about suite upgrades, and sure they are great if you can get them and the SPG program was great about giving them to their top elites — no problem with that as the program was structured to reward them.
However, the SPG program could not support the requirements of the marketplace, and it is that simple, Starwood is going away because it could not compete with hotel chains that have a more “downmarket” presence and the SPG Platinum elites are up in arms that are being gobbled up by the Chevy Cavalier set, as they put it.
I say tough, welcome to the real world, not the rarefied world of falconry….
They will still find value at Marriott Rewards, or wherever they land, just not the pampered treatment that some of become used to having.
That business model did not work – for whatever reason – and now they are just going to have to get used to being with more traditional — and downmarket — programs.
@HORACE — SPG suite upgrades were so terrific that they had to offer their platinum members alternate perks?!! Why? Simple: they did not clear.
As a HH Diamond who depends on “complimentary” upgrades, I cleared 100% (14/14) of mine last year, including on award stays, and I just requalified for HHD this year and have failed to clear only two suite upgrad s, both occurring over the Easter holidays in FRA and BUD, when Catholics flocked to both cities and the properties managers worked hard to give me their “best” alternative…
@HORACE — BTW, I agree with the rest of your take in that last lost…
“…last post.” Make sure to check what your smartphone spellchecker thinks you are trying to say!
@HORACE…
A primary reason many business are sold is due to CEO contracts where they get tens or hundreds of millions if the company is bought out. I very seriously wonder if Mr Aron and others in the executive leadership team or even the board of directors benefit personally from a sale.
The consolidation is terrible for competition. But perhaps the government needs this as a means to avoid deflation given the commodities bear market. Significant mergers in pharmaceutical, airlines, hotel, electronics, and other products seem like they would help achieve higher prices.
If you need to be ‘bigger to succeed’ then something is wrong. It is in the opposite direction of capitalism which should foster the ability for smaller companies to innovate and drive competition. Starwood did then sold out – and in my opinion is likely due to very substantial bonuses for executives.
Perhaps Aron was actively looking to sell for a very substantial bonus…
I feel that there are many things wrong with the corporate culture in America today and that this could be one of them.
Aside from the great benefits I get as SPG. I get great value form the flexibility of the point program itself.
I dont know if any of the Marriott people want to comment on this.
What does a 200-250.00 night room go for points wise with Marriott
As somebody who redeems MANY points only stays with ease and rare blackout dates that room costs me generally 10K-15K (Average) $ nights get one free.
St Regis 700.00-900 room usually 30K points per night
Forget the breakfast and late checkout. And yes the 4PM late checkout is great for me. I got 5Pm when I asked last week in Hong Kong. I had a later train and I wanted to chill and finish some work in the room.
Understand your concerns, but I feel they are misplaced with the lodging industry. Most have adopted an asset light strategy whereby they do not own the properties — the either manage them or franchise them, or both, but there are still significant smaller players in any given market.
As such, anti-trust concerns are really quite low, IMHO.
Add to that you still have IHG, Hilton and to a lesser extent Hyatt in the US, not to mention Wyndham, Best Western and Choice hotels, not to mention nameless mom and pop or boutique properties and I just don’t see and anti-trust issue.
And the foregoing does not even throw into play airbnb.com which is opening up countless additional rooms for those who are interested in that sort of accommodation.
This deal with pass muster with very few changes, but as other articles have noted, a number of flags will likely be furled for good as there likely will be some brand consolidation.
@RobertW —
I answered you in the other thread when you posted essentially the same complaint — you just did not like the answer.
Nevertheless, for the sake of completeness, I will re-post it again so that you perhaps will learn some hard truths:
“HORACE says:
November 17, 2015 at 5:20 pm
@RobertW — My main program is Marriott although I would not call myself an expert.
I notice 2 things from your posts — that you are a Platinum in SPG — which can only be attained thru extensive nights at their hotels — at a minimum around 25 – 1 night stays at their hotels, as well as your assertion that you get the majority of your points thru credit card spend.
(Both of your earlier posts.)
If accurate, then you can easily attain Platinum status in the Marriott program — and don’t kid yourself, that is what it is going to be.
That said, it will be unlikely that Marriott will be as generous with the suite upgrades as SPG has been — get used to it.
In addition, since you accumulate the majority of your points thru credit card spend — that likely might change — if you patronize Marriott program hotels — you will see more points earned as a Platinum elite member in Marriott than in SPG, but of course, Marriott point redemptions are much higher, as well.
If your credit card spend was mainly for categories that other credit cards provide bonuses, then I suggest that you change your credit cards, as the Marriott/Ritz Carlton credit cards are not very good at generating those points.
Yes, MS people can generate points easily, but the Marriott card has only a few bonus categories — such as dining — that will generate 2 points/$ but that can be found in many other cards, including the Chase Premium Sapphire card which also generates a like bonus, but can transfer points into Marriott, or Hyatt or United, the latter perhaps being better for many people.
Anyone can generate outsized rewards redemptions in particular instances — such as your China example. I doubt very much that the hotel outside of a convention warrants a $600 room night, as the Category 1 designation is likely more apt for another reason.
I suggest that you and other SPG Platinum members adjust your expectations as Marriott was built on middle of the road travelers — something that SPG lacked as demonstrated by the paucity of hotels in that category which caused them to be sold to Marriott.
High flyers such as yourself should adjust your expectations, or otherwise flee to Hyatt — with its even smaller footprint, but Hyatt is unlikely to change due to market conditions as the Pritzker family retain voting control and will not be easily subject to the input from Wall Street as SPG is.
With respect to Marriott redemption, others have noted the Travel package awards as good value, and they are. However, I think that you should just get used to your favorite St. Regis or other Luxury Collection property doubling in points cost for that is what is going to occur — as Marriott has 9 tiers topping off at 45,000 points/night, I believe and Ritz Carlton properties — which many of your sort of hotels will be either grouped under, or whose award chart will likely correspond to a like award redemption, start at around that per night redemption and increase from there — but they are not the 90,000 points/night that I believe some HHonors hotels are!
Marriott provides very good value for middle of the road travelers — such as myself — who don’t mind flying coach — and do sometimes get a space available upgrade on award or paid stays to a suite, no more, no less.
Adjust your expectations…….”
@RobertW —
With respect to your point redemption question in particular, I would also state that one should expect anywhere between 20,000 to 35,000 points to be spent at such hotels.
Of course, this is a big generalization, but I roughly seek value of 1 Marriott point = 1 cent, IHG = .7 cents, HHonors points = .4 -.5 cents and SPG point = 2 cents.
Only you can decide when to redeem for a particular hotel.
One thing is certain however, inasmuch as earning potential in points as a Marriott elite (or non-elite) is far greater at Marriott properties than SPG properties — this is something that DCS has alluded to with respect to SPG vs. his favored chain, HHonors.
Although I am not such a devotee of HHonors since they did a massive devaluation — and not of the aspirational properties that they have — I am recently disappointed in Marriott’s “category creep.”
Just like I can’t abide the idea to pay 20,000 to 30,000 HHonors points for a Hampton Inn, I don’t like the idea that you can no longer find Category 5 (25,000 Marriott points) properties in downtown city cores in many cases.
However, the flip side is that when the price to be paid is out of whack with the points cost, with higher points earning programs, should you wish to stay brand family loyal, the default position is actually paying for that hotel, and pocketing more points to be used later at a better price per point ratio.
For example, I have about 160,000 HHonors points in my account and I am always seeking ways to maximize my use of what are to me really valueless points, especially here in the USA.
Imagine my surprise, then, for me to discover that unlike the USA, the UK has some reasonably priced HHonors options — a decent number of Category 2 = 10,000 HHonors points hotels.
If I value an HHonor point at .4 cents, that means that for $40 US, I can get a hotel night, and with my corresponding Gold status, free breakfast for myself and my spouse.
Now, I challenge you to find any better value than than in either SPG or Marriott Rewards.
Moreover, since the GBP is worth more than the US $, the points and cash rate for HHonors awards are quite good steals across the pond, as well.
Long story short — aspects of the SPG program are going to change and you have to accept that.
However, that does not mean that you can’t find good value with the programs you might still have — and diversification is key.
There are hardly any SPG or Hyatt hotels in the UK, and even less outside of the major cities, that is why having a stable of points currencies — or hotels to spend them at — is important.
@DCS —
Sorry, don’t use a spell checker, sorry also to say I don’t have a smartphone.
In fact, I usually don’t re-read what I write (I know, it shows) as it is more of a stream on consciousness thing, and I just let it rip.
@DCS —
I bet you only wish you could get your hands on a HHonors AMEX Surpass or HHonors Citi Reserve credit card. $40,000.00 charged on either sucker and you are Diamond!
Those who are really into MS can do that in a heartbeat, from what I have read!
Wouldn’t that make your life easier!
I have about 540 life-time nights with SPG, >500 with HHonors, and 38 with Marriott. SPG is an interesting program with a very slick marketing that makes many top tier travelers very happy. However, returns on dollar spending in hotels was never good with SPG unless there is a lucrative promotion. Recently, the SPG promotions are just mediocre.
@HORACE said: “I bet you only wish you could get your hands on a HHonors AMEX Surpass or HHonors Citi Reserve credit card. $40,000.00 charged on either sucker and you are Diamond!”
No, you’d bet wrong. I have the AMEX Surpass and I got rid of the Citi Reserve in favor of the no-fee HHonors Citi Visa, which has never failed to award me any points whereas Citi Reserve failed so much that I got it of it.
More to the point is that it is really silly to spend $40K for a status that one can get by just spending $12K on hotel stays. That is how I earn HH Diamond (the only program that allows elite qualification on number of stays, nights or $$ [base points]). I just made HH Diamond this year after just 12 stays, 43 nights and 124K base points, with the latter getting me requalified. It means that I spent just $12.4K to make Diamond and that for a $40K spend I would qualify for HH Diamond $40K/$12/HHD = 3.33 years!!! Yup, a $40K spend at Hilton hotels would qualify me for HHD for 3 consecutive years, why would I spend that much on the Citi Reserve or AMEX Surpassto make HHD for just one year? It’s a no-brainer so I do not.
BTW, it is fine to state “Of course, this is a big generalization, but I roughly seek value of 1 Marriott point = 1 cent, IHG = .7 cents, HHonors points = .4 -.5 cents and SPG point = 2 cents”, just as long as you do not start comparing those valuations across the programs without taking into account the earn side of the mile/point equation. HHonnors points may be worth .4-.5 cent each but they are worth 2.4-3.0 cents as starpoints, because one earns on average 6x more HH points a pop than one earns starpoints…
We’ll be fine if you just stay away from pontificating on loyalty points valuation because only one or two blogger(s) out there “get(s)” it, and I know that you do not get it…
DCS — I understand your loyalty to HHonors as I am shooting towards Lifetime MR Gold.
I do value the HHonors point as noted above, but I certainly agree with you that they are far easier to earn than SPG points — I do not drink the SPG Kool Aid!
I was utterly dismayed, not by the huge points increase in aspirational properties at HHonors, rather as I have noted above, the ridiculous points cost for domestic US properties, as well as the “slidiing scale” in points redemption for properties — hitherto, HHonors had been my go-to program as I found the mid-level Gold tier to be the best and Marriott a close second.
Then, HHonors devalued and Marriott was still running those wonderful free night mega bonus promotions and had not had the category creep — or points inflation that HHonors had imposed.
Therefore, among 2 programs that both offered multiple points earning opportunities while at their hotels, I chose MR in light of the HHonors changes.
Now, with Marriott’s category creep, Category 4 and 5 Courtyards are the norm and they are inferior in many ways to Hamptons in that I don’t even get a complimentary breakfast — even as an elite!
Having said that, I am too fully vested with MR to turn back now with respect to chasing another program’s status, although I still have a great deal of diversification points wise.
I have hundreds of thousands of points in both Hyatt and Club Carlson, in addition to my nearly 160,000 HHonors points — but a few nights redemption in HHonors would wipe that out.
I prefer to keep them for outsized award redemption, like that mentioned above for the D/T Sheffield, or the Points & Cash rate I have secured for the D/T Chester or the newly opened Hampton Oxford.
In any event, each program had/has its strengths and weaknesses, and my kitty of approximately 200,000 SPG points were being squirreled away for those redemptions where Marriott had a weak footprint — I guess that is no more!
Shth s
Sorry, ignore the last sentence fragment. I did not see that detritus when I posted.
@Gary How long is Starwood’s co-branding agreement with Amex and what do you think happens at its expiration?
@Horace at least get your MR redemption rates right…a $200-$250/night hotel is not going for 20K points, full stop.
The ones I stay at in downtown Chicago that have cash rates for ~$200 go for 40K points/night. A bunch more in LA I’ve stayed at, at similar price points, are 35K-40K/night.
@ UA-NYC —
I suggest that you re-take a course in reading comprehension.
What I wrote was the following:
“With respect to your point redemption question in particular, I would also state that one should expect anywhere between 20,000 to 35,000 points to be spent at such hotels.
Of course, this is a big generalization….”
Full stop.
Your decision to only focus on the lowest rate of point redemption that I proffered to answer a sweeping question, demonstrates your utter lack of objectivity on the matter.
Of course, your comments in the FT thread moaning the loss of your precious suite upgrades and your berating of anyone who challenges your world view of that program speaks volumes and which is further buttressed by your attempt to selectively parse my statements.
It fails.
Big time.
@Win Starwood just re-upped with Amex, I do not know if it was a 5 or 10 year agreement, but most importantly I do not know what it says in the event of change of control of the company.
Still waiting for whatever isn’t encouraging for Starwood members…appears to be an incomplete blog post.
I was IHG RA for many years until this year. I have well over 500 InterContinental nights, but they have no lifetime status rewards that I’m aware of. Anyone know any different?
@HORACE I did not see your comments on the other thread until now. Ok clearly understood. Somebody like me who generates vast amounts through credit card spend is going to be unhappy with Marriott per free room nights. SPG also has some nice deals on Cash/points. Although I stay mostly at higher end places, there were plenty of stays for business where I got a basic room for a small number of points. . Ill miss the Starwood Moments program. It has been very good for me. I think that will be the first to go.
I looked at Hyatt and although they have a much smaller footprint than SPG they do have coverage in many places I go within big cities. They also have the association in Vegas and I am there alot for trade shows.
I will try over the next few months to use all I can at Luxury Collection properties and others I wanted to use. Per the other programs out there I think Hyatt has the most favorable for my needs at the Diamond level.
And then there is the other alternative which is to forget about hotel status. I have not used AIR BNB but have used some of the competitors in the past. For my leisure stays overseas that might be another consideration. After this deal going down I would think there is a very good chance Hyatt merges with another company. I would not be surprised at all. I do think Hyatt has the chance to get a nice boost if they can aquire SPG customers who are up for grabs.
@ RoberW — If Hyatt coverage works for you then you will be very fortunate and I think that brand will be a good fit for your needs and wants.
Of course, it has nowhere near the number of high-end properties that SPG has due to its much smaller footprint, however, they do treat their elites well and you can get suite upgrades for more points.
If you generate a great deal of credit card spend, and if you think that Hyatt might be a suitable alternative, then you might wish to investigate BOTH they Hyatt credit card and the Sapphire preferred credit card — both issued by Chase.
The Hyatt credit card gives you a head start on nights/stays towards Hyatt elite status and I believe has some multipliers in there as well for some bonus categories.
The Sapphire Preferred earns Ultimate Rewards points which can be transferred into the Hyatt program, as well as the Marriott program, as well as other programs, as well. It too, has bonus categories like the Hyatt card, but they are far more extensive when it comes to travel and transportation options, such as parking, tolls, etc.
I don’t know anything about AirBNB.com and doubt I ever will — I am a confirmed hotel guy, and only patronize those that have some sort of rewards program. Inasmuch as AirBNB puts rooms/apartments up for let and has no frequency program, they will stay firmly off my radar.
Good luck in your endeavors and if you have any questions, feel free to ask.
I see now Hyatt is taking a proactive approach and matching to Diamond status for SPG Plats according to Gary. This is a great way for me to test them out. Amex is a big loser on this one as well.
@mdtravel: Really? You don’t get it?
Marriotts are mac and cheese.
Starwoods are caviar.
Now Mcdonalds is buying up the fabulous French restaurant and all our “buy one filet, get one bottle of Dom free” coupons will only get a big mac and a diet coke. We’re used to filets and Dom, and are not looking forward to spending our “reward years” eating crap.
You seriously don’t get this??
Gary, what do you think about the vox.com that came out today?
http://www.vox.com/2015/11/19/9760798/spg-merger-marriott