disneymagicgirl
Been there, Done that, Going back!
- Joined
- Dec 13, 2005
My question is how many non-churner rewards members would even know about N&F certs, or would have them hanging out in their account un-linked if they did? If you are using them as Marriott markets them, you'd buy a cert and use the miles and hotel nights to book a single vacation right away. They seem to have been popular with people "in the know" about points/miles etc more than your average traveler. So while I agree that Marriott has been sneaky about this, to some extent they are dealing with a worthy adversary - the people who are trying to maximize return on rewards, more than the average consumer. A good bit of the backlash has been from people who were hoping for a better reward due to the program change arbitrage. There may be sufficient backlash from the group who is in the know to allow upgrades under the new program, or it may be another instance of travel bloggers killing the golden goose The game is definitely different because of the dissemination of info (not that I would know a fraction of what I know about churning without travel bloggers and this lovely board).
Bottom line is that it could have all been avoided if marriott had released the mapping chart to their customers instead of feeding out misinformation of all sorts via CSRs for weeks/days/hours prior to the 18th.
Would some people have taken advantage and purchased whatever the best deal was? Sure. But the vast majority of people don't read travel blogs. Others have no clue what the best deal is. And still others, like myself, didn't care what the best deal was, and just wanted a cert they'd be likely to use.
If they had released the info I would have upgraded to a cat 7 cert to redeem on a new cat 5 hotel within my year window as is the policy and would be a happy customer now. Redeeming at purchase isn't/wasn't required. I needed to air miles immediately, not the week at a hotel.
It is what it is now. Even what was released yesterday isn't working. Apparently the CSRs are still unable to process the refund or attach certs at this time. It is a hot mess. I am not worried about it anymore. Either they fix it or I don't stay at Marriotts. They won't miss me and I won't miss them.