The Marriott/SPG merger has not gone swimmingly for so many loyal members and some have suggested they are leaving. Where should they stay instead of the world’s largest hotel chain?
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Marriott Rewards Botched The Starwood Preferred Guest Merger
Perhaps the business side of the merger went better for Marriott than for the loyalty programs, but in the Understatement of 2018, Marriott Rewards botched the merger with Starwood Preferred Guest.
Elites are still awaiting the correct number of lifetime nights to post to their accounts. Missing details, stay credits, points and nights continue to plague the Marriott “Bonvoy” program and elites have noticed.
Even the name of the program was a failure in both theory and practice. They failed to achieve consensus on the name of the program, “Bonvoy” before they announced the rest of the changes earlier in the year. The name alone is proof enough of a failure as the new name was widely panned.
These issues have sent some elites looking around, and here are my picks for where they should go depending on if they were a Marriott or an SPG loyalist.
If You Were Loyal to Marriott, Try Hilton
Hilton has been an excellent program and a close number two for me personally. If you were a Marriott customer you only gain by moving to Hilton. The number of properties and their distribution between select service and premium properties remains similar excluding the new SPG properties. IHG has a similar number of hotels, though not in as many international locations, generally lower quality hotels and IHG hates their elites anyway.
You’ll enjoy breakfast at any property that serves it and much earlier in the process. Both Gold elites and Diamond members at Hilton receive complimentary breakfast which can add up to big savings if you have time to eat in the morning. Marriott didn’t and still doesn’t offer this as universally as Hilton and certainly not to members with as few as 20 qualifying nights.
Hilton runs better promotions than Marriott as well. Even if you’re not a huge fan of their 2k Every Stay promotion, Marriott’s promotions are unremarkable.
Hilton runs status matches and challenges ceaselessly, Marriott members will find a welcome home in Hilton and a more consistent experience.
If You Were Loyal to SPG, Try Hyatt
The complaint about Hyatt has always been their footprint, but as some say, it’s the quality, not the quantity. That’s something that’s easy to agree to a certain extent, but there are limitations. For example, Kimpton had around 80 hotels all of which were high-quality when they were acquired by IHG (who hates their elites). That’s just too few to be able to be loyal unless you solely travel to major US cities.
Hyatt and SPG’s footprints used to be more divergent than they are now with SPG offering 1,300+ properties to Hyatt’s 700. However, when SPG loyalists think of their brand, it’s not often of the Sheraton brand which consists of about half of those hotels that were generally loathed by customers. Hyatt has continued to grow by acquiring Two Roads Hospitality and a partnership with another 54 additional Small Leading Hotels properties that better fill the map (and growing).
Hyatt has a similar upgrade policy for Globalists to SPG’s Platinum if there’s a suite available you will likely be upgraded to it. It’s not perfect in either program and SPG was more generous with the type of suite than Hyatt will be, but that benefit was likely too generous even for SPG and is not matched by any other chain in the world. Hyatt’s is as close as one can come. Hyatt is top heavy in relation to their high-end hotels when compared by percentage with other major chains; SPG was the same.
SPG members will be happier with the breakfast policy at Hyatt than with SPG, and the Hyatt credit card (we don’t sell them but we use them) is now more valuable than the SPG credit card’s current sign up bonus. Hyatt elites will also earn more points on stays with a better earn/burn ratio.
Are you a Marriott “Bonvoy” member that’s switching brands? Are you headed to Hilton, Hyatt or somewhere else?
Long-time SPG 100/night year stayer – Marriott is terrible and the past 5 months are emblematic of the reason why many of “us” stayed far, far away from Marriott for so long. Terrible IT/CS, no transparency, no accountability at the top.
That being said – I have no desire to move to Hilton…maybe CS is better, but they are even more bottom/limited service heavy than Marriott, with a weak portfolio of aspirational / differentiated properties.
I would like to consider Hyatt, but they are not doing status matches at the moment (I and others have tried), and I was denied the Hyatt Visa due to 5/24. And I really don’t want to start from scratch…
I’m with you, except that I product changed my Hyatt card to the new one in September. Any chance you could product change from another Chase card?
I haven’t tried so I can’t say with certainty, but I have had an extensive relationship with Chase and doubt they would do a product change to anything besides the same affinity line or Ultimate Rewards.
UA-NYC, I guess I meant to be more direct about this so let me clarify. If you were an SPG loyalist, I think you will find Hyatt to be home sweet home. They should be running challenges right now even if there is not a straight match open at the time. I will try and find a link.
That being said, Hyatt and SPG are closer in footprint and balance for premium to select service properties than they have been in the past. I don’t see a Marriott customer being happy in Hyatt, but I can see such for SPG Platinums.
Very poor jornalist. More like a blogger than a journalist but this is maybe you are promoting another brand or being paid to do so. Marriott and Starwood going together was by itself a huge challenge when it comes to service provider. Only the ones that work in the field know such challenge that the merge of both system, including members programs, couldnt be more smooth than it was having in consideration that both programs were completly different in terms of points calculation, status and other specifications. Myself I have always been MARRIOTT and the change for me was non existence, everything worked as usual and I believe that the big struggle was on the SPG size because Marriott addpated the SPG to Marriott conditions and not the other way around. Members that are not satisfied and consider moving to other brand, well, if the reason is the status of their card, then they better move. There´s much more that Marriott and Starwoods offer and if you only value the status of your card then you d better be a Wallmart member, they give you a gold card when you reach 1000$ a year 🙂
I have to disagree with you on Hyatt’s upgrade success it has been a problem with them for years much like Marriott’s and thats a fact. Disclosure I am a Marriott LFTPP, and for 10 years was a Hyatt Diamond/Globalist ( I hate that name) the success rate on suite upgrades was marginal in the US somewhat better internationally where I did most of my travel. Hilton is much more like Marriott than Hyatt in that most of their properties are franchisees and as such benefits are solely dependent on that manager mirroring Marriotts poor record of late. It’s all about bed count.
If one is looking for something free those days are gone unless you’re a real road warrior and not in a Hampton Inn or a Courtyard. I have found on business book the room I want and hope for a possible upgrade when using points cash & Points is the best way to ensure you get what you want.
My experience has been total opposite. Loyal to Hilton for years and switched to Hyatt about 4 years ago and never looked back. I get suites, room amenities, and other “bend the rules” items. But what is the best thing about Hyatt, traveling to Japan and staying at amazing hotels that are crazy expensive for free aka points or staying in Vienna and getting a 2k+ sq ft suite. Andaz Costa Rica is a steal with points and cash and the list goes in and on. Hyatt’s footprint is small but their hotels are in the next level especially internationaly.
I want to be clear regarding upgrades. Outside of select service hotels last year (post death of Hyatt Gold Passport and fully into World of Hyatt) my upgrade percentage with Hyatt became stellar. This was a promise in the new program I simply doubted they would deliver and I was wrong.
It sounds like some of your information is historically-based for which I would concur, prior to the last 15-18 months Hyatt did not proactively upgrade elites without them using a Diamond Suite Upgrade. However, in the more recent history, that has completely changed and I think Hyatt should be commended on it.
Moving over to Hyatt, I miss the real SPG. Hilton and IHG for backup. I do have the old Hyatt and IHG cards. Canceling my SPG card this year.
I miss the old SPG too.
Why aren’t other chains aggressively going after SPG/Marriott loyalists? Why isn’t Hyatt matching status? Baffles me.
I am baffled to. I received a simple “ not matching now” note back from them. Insane.
I have a real answer for this, actually. Following a failed bid to acquire SPG outright (due to the preferential Pritzker shares) Hyatt was… upset… and offered a free status match to pretty much anybody though the original target was SPG customers. It was so popular that their teams were backed up for days and ultimately the program became so top heavy that it necesitated the switch to World of Hyatt from Gold Passport. Some of those items were already in the works, but were not as urgent until the mass status welcome.
While not many of the original loyalty staff remain within Hyatt, I doubt that anything that looks like a massive welcome again will be met with resistance, though I do believe challenges are still available. I am still looking for a source on that.
Kyle is you hear about a challenge please do post it. I found a site that talked about status matches / failures and everyone seemingly was denied by Hyatt.
I get that they aren’t going to go and offer free matches again…but no challenges seems short sighted.
I would be outraged over Marriot’s failures since August if they impacted this Platinum Elite at all. A couple minor issues with points posting from stays, but no issues on the website end at all. My SPG and Marriot nights combined perfectly. With any of my minor issues all it has taken was a quickly answered call and I have been pleasantly surprised by how helpful the phone agents have been.
Hopefully I’ll keep my unicorn status until everything gets sorted out.
Chris I am guessing you were legacy Marriott…it is a different world coming from the other side
I was not loyal to SPG but did fsvour them with 50 nights up until last year. With the merger that dropped to about 15 across Marriot and SPG and I have no plans to stay with them this year. I did like SPG but it was a hassle to go out of my way to maintain high status. For longer stays I will use AirBNB and short stays the easiest option for a hotel.
As Marriott has completely ignored a particular customer profile , namely the low night but high spend guest , any program is better for high spend guests . The low night but $20,000 spend traveler is stuck at Gold with Marriott. Gold level benefits are insanely low and disproportionate with high spend .
The vast majority of the competition respects revenue and counts revenue as a method to move up tiers . I am very intrigued by IHG Royal Ambassador program . Nice portfolio of benefits for Royal Ambassadors and I can get there by low nights and high spend . Marriott has ZERO respect for revenue until you hit 100 nights .
I agree with most of this but would strongly caution you against IHG Royal Ambassador unless you consistently stay in cities in which their Intercontinental chain is a likely candidate for your hotel of choice. With the exception of Kimpton, the rest of the chain is mostly comprised of poor quality hotels that do not honor many of the benefits you will read about with Royal Ambassador. They also charge for the program in addition to requiring stay credits for the very privilege of being a great customer of theirs. If you think that Marriott has zero respect for their customers under 100 nights, IHG is prepared to show them up.
Except that many of us who were SPG Plat100s now are finding Marriott Platinum Premier Ambassador status is just about as good. So we welcome all the former SPG elites running to Hyatt (a worthy alternative if their limited footprint works for you)—usually because the Hyatt portfolio is just too limited for us. We don’t care much about the former Marriott Plat ranks, since they really don’t overlap us or our stays so often at the luxury and upper upscale properties that were the mainstay for SPG elites.
In my case, my Ambassador has largely kept the merger IT craziness from impacting me much at all. I’m also patiently awaiting the sweep for Lifetime Plat Premier or Titanium status sometime in Jan or perhaps Feb. Otherwise, legacy SPG hotels still upgrade me almost all the time just as before. RC hotels seem stingy with upgrades, but at least I now have that options when StR and Luxury Collection aren’t available. Legacy Marriott hotels don’t have much interest for me, but I at least enjoy having the plentiful options when I need or want them.
Marriott has a lot to learn about how excellent SPG was for customer service overall. But Marriott is allowing my Ambassador to pretty much mimic that excellent customer service. So I’m willing to stay for the time being. But Marriott better find a way to ensure that RC and Marriott properties continue to treat me as well as StR and LC properties still do…or else.
I am glad your experience has been good with SPG, unfortunately, Marriott and SPG customers that I speak with have not been as lucky.
Always loyal to Courtyard Marriott hotel, Pune !!!
@ghostrider5408 frames this issue well. While it is understandable that there is dissatisfaction with the Marriott program, it is also naive to think a for profit business that becomes larger and now has more market share is going to make is easier to give away their product. And give it away when business travel is booming. Delta is practicing a similar strategy. That is what they should be doing for their shareholders.
Yes this type of behavior will effect loyalty, but right now they don’t have to worry about that. Somewhat like the airlines, you only have so many choices and in many markets Marriott is the better choice based on location, amenities, where the business/event is, etc.
When the economic downturn happens I assume they will loosen up. IMHO
If Hyatt was smart, they would know the downturn is coming and should try to get ahead of it w/increasing their customer base as much as possible in the short term…I get not giving away mid or top tier for free, but to not even be offering status matches is insane
I agree that the level of hubris by travel brands right now is unconscionable, that a slow down/crash/what-have-you is in fact coming and we will see who has made good and bad choices during the ups to survive the downs.
Their efforts to get more top tier members, in the period it became clear that the whole Globalist/Exploration thing was meeting resistance, were lamentable. Rather than try to hang on to those who became disaffected, they preferred to offer fast track to selected corporates, further pissing off their old clientele.
One suspects the better treatment reported may well have something to do with fewer Globalists/Diamonds; consequently if they do more status matches, the experience will likely worsen.
I’m holding off for a while to see what Titanium ( or whatever) looks like when/if Marriott gets their act together ( …so far it couldn’t be worse).
“it’s the quality, not the quantity.” Really? How can I make use of Hyatt’s quality if they do not have the quantity? There is never a Hyatt where I go. Also, they destroyed their loyalty program. Thus, there is no way I am going out of my to become loyal to Hyatt.
Similar thoughts were said about Starwood. Agreed it is not for everyone but I am going to give it a shot.
They seemed to have walked back many of the short sighted WOH moves.
Marriott totally screwed this up. When I hear the word “Bonvoy”, it’s in the tone of some black-and-White Madmen-cum-Seth-MacFarlane tone, knowingly molesting my purse against it’s will for no real reward.
I stayed a tonne at SPG while I was a poop-kicker Big 4 consultant. They sometimes made me feel nice when I stayed at their properties for fun with my now wife and now family (formerly bodily fluids).
Now a partner at another Big 4 with a LOT more discretionary budget, I’ll never stay with this bunch of tools again. Shangri-La is surprisingly affordable nowadays and there are other alternatives too. I would try IHG if you can scout a decent property, but just like with SPG, you’ll need to choose wisely.