Nice: Marriott Adds “Elite Member Lounge” Filter To Website

Marriott has made a genuinely positive improvement to its website, which many Bonvoy elite members will no doubt appreciate.

Marriott’s website now shows which hotels have lounges

One of the benefits of Marriott Bonvoy Platinum status and above is that you receive access to club lounges at most brands, if they’re available. The catch, of course, is that it can be hard to keep track of this:

• Marriott has so many brands, and it’s hard to remember which brands typically have club lounges, and which don’t
• Even among brands that in theory have club lounges, so many individual properties no longer have them, as these lounges have largely been cut post-pandemic

So along those lines, Marriott has added a new feature whereby members can choose to filter hotels based on whether they have a club lounge or not (sadly it doesn’t seem to be available in the app yet).

When you go to Marriott’s website, just select the “All Filters” button, where you can sort hotels based on all kinds of features, ranging from whether they offer free breakfast, to whether they have EV charging.

There’s now yet another option for filtering hotels — you can choose to only view hotels that offer elite member lounges.

Let me emphasize that if you select this filter option, it’ll specifically be for hotels that have club lounges that are accessible by elite members, rather than club lounges in general. For example, Ritz-Carlton properties generally have club lounges, but elite members don’t receive free access, so they wouldn’t show up when using this search option.

Let me also emphasize that this filter isn’t that sophisticated in terms of knowing whether a lounge will actually be open during your stay. Some lounges may be closed or have limited hours over the weekends or certain other periods, and that wouldn’t be reflected here.

I’m happy to see this feature added

Personally, I’m a huge fan of club lounges. It’s not just about getting free low quality snacks in the evening, but I just appreciate having somewhere other than my room to work from, having access to a coffee machine, etc.

Unfortunately it’s increasingly feeling like club lounges are becoming a thing of the past. Hotels have seen huge inflation with their elite ranks, and with hotels having to give so many people lounge access, the economics become really challenging.

One would hope that hotels get some sort of a revenue premium from elite members by offering these lounges, though in many cases, it can be a bit of a pain to actually figure out which hotels have operational lounges. So I’m delighted to see this development, which makes this all much easier. This sure seems overdue. I mean, Marriott will let you filter based on whether a hotel has a business center (what is this, 2003?).

Bottom line

Marriott’s website now lets you filter hotels based on whether they have a club lounge that’s accessible by elite members. I’m really happy to see this added, since it’s a feature many elite members value, but it otherwise took a bit of guesswork. Well done, Marriott!

Anyone else appreciate Marriott’s new elite lounge filter?