Marriott’s new loyalty program is launching today, so it has been quite an exciting day.
First it was bad news about Marriott’s Platinum upgrade policy. Then it was good news. Then it was bad news about how Marriott Travel Packages are mapping over.
One other point of concern has been regarding whether hotels at all Marriott brands will have “standard” rooms going forward. Historically some of Starwood’s best hotels didn’t have “standard” rooms, and therefore even a base room at these hotels cost twice as many points as what it otherwise would (and sometimes even more).
We had first learned that Marriott was planning on offering standard rooms at all hotels, which is great for those looking to redeem points.
Then many of us were once again alarmed when we saw Marriott’s leaked terms & conditions, which said the following:
Free Night Awards at the following locations require a higher amount of Points either because the Participating Property does not have standard rooms or the standard rooms it offers have a mandatory full board requirement in peak seasons: Vana Belle, a Luxury Collection Resort, Koh Samui, Thailand; The Naka Island, a Luxury Collection Resort & Spa, Phuket, Thailand; Sheraton Steamboat Resort Villas, Steamboat Springs, Colorado; The Westin Golf Resort & Spa, Playa Conchal, Costa Rica; The St. Regis Bora Bora and the Le Méridien Bora Bora, Bora Bora, French Polynesia; Mystique, a Luxury Collection Resort, Santorini, Santorini, Greece; The St. Regis Bali Resort, Nusa Dua, Indonesia; Hotel Cala di Volpe, Hotel Pitrizza, and Hotel Romazzino, Costa Smeralda, Italy; W Maldives, North Ari Atoll, Maldives; W Koh Samui, Surat Thani, Thailand; Al Maha, a Luxury Collection Desert Resort & Spa, Dubai, U.A.E.; St. Regis Residence Club, Aspen, Aspen, CO; and Phoenician Residences, a Luxury Collection Residence Club, Scottsdale, AZ.
Even Marriott’s brand new award chart says the following at the bottom:
“Free Night Awards at some locations require higher points redemption amounts either because the hotel does not have standard rooms or the standard rooms it offers have mandatory full board requirements.”
So, what’s the deal? Is Marriott backtracking? Apparently not.
Marriott has confirmed to me today that all properties that are excluded by the terms & conditions above will be bookable with points at the standard rates. They’re working on updating the terms & conditions (this could take several days, or even a couple of weeks), but these hotels should be bookable shortly with points at the standard rates.
You’ll be able to redeem just 60,000 points per night at Al Maha Dubai
So that’s great news…
@Dave - some basic math would suggest that your former 3 SPG points earned per dollar would now equal 9 MR points per dollar. But now you will earn 12.5 points per dollar. So...not a devaluation.
Lucky, could you write something about the number of Marriott Rewards points that Marriott is now offering for 7-night certificates by category. I have 5 unattached now category 1-4 certificates and I'm simply wanting to redeem them for more airline miles.
Just got back from the St Regis Maldives and it was fun to see the Whale Bar and walkway from the villas to the main area featured in 2 of your posts today
I have been SPG gold for a few years via my Amex platinum card. I seem to remember that when I stayed at SPG, I received a 50% bonus on starpoints due to gold status. Now, under the new regime as a gold elite member, I will be getting only a 25% bonus. That is a huge devaluation.
@Michael - nothing is fully right & proper on the MR/SPG sites at the moment...will take a few more days for dust to settle.
Hoping you will be able to answer two questions that Marriott was unable to answer. 1. I was/am a SPG Lifetime Gold. I had around 590+ room nights in my SPG lifetime and around 27+ in my Marriott lifetime - apologies for using the word lifetime so many times.
Today, I noticed that Marriott changed my SPG membership number and I am unable to login and see my SPG history. When I login to...
Hoping you will be able to answer two questions that Marriott was unable to answer. 1. I was/am a SPG Lifetime Gold. I had around 590+ room nights in my SPG lifetime and around 27+ in my Marriott lifetime - apologies for using the word lifetime so many times.
Today, I noticed that Marriott changed my SPG membership number and I am unable to login and see my SPG history. When I login to Marriott Rewards, I see that my status has been elevated to entry level Platinum - it seems they now have -3- levels of PLT50/PLT75 and PLT100+Ambassador. I assume they added my SPG + Marriott room nights which put me over the 600 room nights needed to obtain lifetime Platinum Status - however, the Marriott Rewards Representative could not answer this. Wondering what your take is?
On another subject, do you have any insight into the Marriott RewardsPlus Program that provides complimentary United Mileage Plus Silver status to Platinum Marriott Rewards members? The terms of service indicate that only PLT75/PLT100 members receive this benefit however, in the PLT benefit chart on marriott.com it clearly shows this is a benefit.
Appreciate your insight.
Zero availability for St Regis Maldives and Bora Bora...no one day available...good luck to the people that got the expensive cat certificates booking 7 days...it was too good to be true...
Sorry read time as 0800EDT on 19 Aug 2018
0800EDT Sunday 18 Aug 2018: when I go to my bookmark for spg.com i am re-directed to the Marriott.com website. Only allows me to sign on using my Marriott details and Account activity only shows what I have with Marriott/Ritz Carlton and no mention of my details with spg.com
Anyone have a comment or solution
90 East End Avenue
Apt. 16B
@Daniel
When I try to book on the app it redirects me to their website?
Disaster Migration… Points are not transfered and Rooms are not bookable eigter… lets see any wait
@Chris and @Brandon,
Just tonight they pushed out new updated versions of the apps for both iPhone and Android. If you download the new app, you can log in and it's pretty clear. You can see which days the St. Regis Maldives has points avail and which it doesn't. It's indeed for the garden room for 60k/nt and I would say there is decent availability but certainly not every day.
However, as I...
@Chris and @Brandon,
Just tonight they pushed out new updated versions of the apps for both iPhone and Android. If you download the new app, you can log in and it's pretty clear. You can see which days the St. Regis Maldives has points avail and which it doesn't. It's indeed for the garden room for 60k/nt and I would say there is decent availability but certainly not every day.
However, as I said, I get to the very final booking page every time and it complains about my cc on iPhone. This goes for $ bookings too - so it seems as if the app is not fully functional. I went ahead and downloaded the Android app just in case that would work. It took works all the way until the last screen, and then gives me a message, "unable to process" after the final "book now" tap. So frustrating.
I'm going to bed now after wasting way too many hours on this, and I am half expecting them to turn "on" the bookings while I sleep :(
@Chris
I have not seen anything either. There's availability showing for the Sheraton, but why spend the points there!
@Daniel54321, how are you able to see the Free Night award for the St. Regis Maldives? Thus far nothing I have tried has gotten that to show up as a valid rate.
I am getting to the final screen for St. Regis Maldives for 60,000 points per night. It is just not accepting my credit card. Frustrating because it feels *SO* close. The error message is, 'This credit card is not accepted at the resort" and I've tried 3 different CC's
I can get on the website now, looks like no availability for any dates for the W Maldives...
I am only able to see my Marriott points, how do you see your spg points balance, does it get rolled over at some point?
Are the mandatory half board still in effect at the Costa Smerelda properties? I was going to go to the Hotel Cervo in September (no mandatory half board in September if I recall correctly) but the other three did.
@aaron and @dan
Thanks for the color! I was logged in on the website during the same period as you were.
When I clicked on SPG properties, however, it took me to an old-style SPG page that only allowed cash bookings.
Sounds like you were lucky! I guess I'll keep clicking and checking....
@Dan
I BELIEVE (was several hours ago and I did it real quick while prepping for my kid's birthday party) it was thru Marriott desktop. Either that or SPG, one of the two...but I believe desktop. It allowed me to login, do a search for Bal Harbour with checking the "use points" box, and then up came the St Regis. I clicked on the property and it took me to the now old school looking...
@Dan
I BELIEVE (was several hours ago and I did it real quick while prepping for my kid's birthday party) it was thru Marriott desktop. Either that or SPG, one of the two...but I believe desktop. It allowed me to login, do a search for Bal Harbour with checking the "use points" box, and then up came the St Regis. I clicked on the property and it took me to the now old school looking SPG site to do the booking. Made 3 separate bookings for 2 nights each...all at 60K pts per. Got the instant confirmation emails and all. This was around 4:30pm eastern roughly.
I even was able to cancel one of the bookings I made as I quickly ruled it out cause of the other 2. So did all of this quickly in the span of 10 mins or so.
Then about 30 mins later I go back and the sites are down. And still appear to be now as of 9pm.
They better honor them...
@Lucky - any idea if Marriott is going to continue to allow “borrowing” against future points?
I.e., can make a reservation if I don’t have sufficient points at time of booking? The agent I spoke with yesterday said yes, but I’m not believing anything at this point.
Just FYI, just now I cancelled my 7 night cat 6 certificate for 75k Marriott points. The refunded points are already in my account.
75k SPG points for 120k AS miles is still not a bad conversion:/
Still having a hard time believing this. When the website was up the specifically excluded properties didn't allow award bookings - they were never available.
Maybe this will change but I doubt it and Marriott are just making fools of bloggers and their own customers.
Time to burn all remaining Marriott points and move stays elsewhere. Disgusted with how they have behaved.
@Ken - the T&Cs now follow the better Starwood language, but much as they are changing the legacy Marriott suite language to mirror the better Starwood one for the better, they could just as easily downgrade it to match Marriott for room availability.
We shall start seeing soon enough.
Not sure why you are believing them now. They have been lying throughout the process and had two years to get their terms and conditions right. Publishing them correctly should have been pretty much the easiest part of the process, so I think we can be pretty sure that the terms and conditions that they published are the ones they intended. Will they change their minds and publish another set? Maybe, but I sure wouldn’t count on it.
@Aaron
What medium did you book through? SPG Desktop, Marriott Desktop, SPG mobile browser, Marriott mobile browser, SPG mobile app or Marriott mobile app?
Does property still have their own blackout periods? or they will inherit Starwood's no blackout policy?
Again, more people jumping the gun and freaking out over being impatient. The new parameters were coming, and yet people didn't see them until now. So they assumed the worst.'
Even though Marriott has again and again come through on almost all of its promises--especially to SPG elites. And here, Marriott is providing a huge bonus perk that it never really originally promised and yet which will offer incredible value for those lucky enough to...
Again, more people jumping the gun and freaking out over being impatient. The new parameters were coming, and yet people didn't see them until now. So they assumed the worst.'
Even though Marriott has again and again come through on almost all of its promises--especially to SPG elites. And here, Marriott is providing a huge bonus perk that it never really originally promised and yet which will offer incredible value for those lucky enough to take advantage of the arbitrage.
Turns out Marriott, despite poor communications leading to some confusion, has come through far more than it hasn't
Perhaps it's time to start giving Marriott credit instead of constantly whining about how bad Marriott has been.
And I'm an SPG Ambassador Plat100 who loves SPG...an who seems to have some perspective.
Wow nice! I've definitely noticed some changes as I've recently been able to log in.
Then it redirected me for SPG properties to the SPG website saying they "need more time."
But good news from you -thanks for sharing! Sounds like things may be bookable soon!
I already got thru about 20 mins ago. Logged in and was able to book 3 different Fri-Sun weekends at the St Regis Bal Harbour for 60K pts a night. They did go thru and I got confirmation emails.
Now though...the sites appear back down. I got the conf numbers though so I assume I'm all set!
Yeah, timeline would be awesome as I've already wasted ~4 hours refreshing the site.
Will these be bookable today? SPG rep told me that they aren't taking points bookings until Monday but I highly doubt that.