Negative Changes to Marriott Meetings & Events Program
Marriott Rewards has had for a long time a Rewarding Events program. Members could earn 10 elite qualifying nights for any booked event, such as renting a meeting room. At the same time you could also earn points or miles. Now, with all the changes going on with Marriott, this program is changing as well.
Marriott Meetings & Events
The name of the program is changing from ‘Rewarding Events’ to ‘Meetings & Events’. There’s also some negative changes to the earning potential. The earning rate has been cut down from 3x to 2X and Elite Qualifying Nights have been limited. Events past August 18 will earn rewards based on the new rules, regardless on when they were booked. You can see more details here.
Earn
Earn points on all eligible charges, including rooms, food and beverage, audio visual charges and more.
- Earn more as you achieve elite status. Per each qualifying event, base members can earn up to 60,000 points (2 points per $1 USD); while Platinum Premier Elite members can earn up to 105,000 points per qualifying event.
If you choose to earn frequent flyer airline miles instead of points, all member tiers can earn a maximum of 20,000 miles (1 mile per $1 USD) per qualifying event.
- Get 10 Elite Qualifying Nights when you book your first meeting — and achieve Silver Elite status automatically.
- Plus, you’ll earn one Elite Qualifying Night for every additional 20 room nights you book — up to 20 Elite Qualifying Nights per contract.
Conclusion
Rewarding Events program was a good way to earn Qualifying Nights towards Marriott Lifetime Status. With the new changes, earning Qualifying Nights is limited to 10 only when you book your first meeting. Points earning rates has also been cut to 2X but limits have been raised at least. Overall negative changes.
HT: Loyalty Lobby
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Marriott also nuked the points compared to SPG as well as killed the significantly better SPG app. With SPG I could get 500 points for not having my room cleaned and 500-1k for checking in at my status level. In Orlando, I could get a free stay at the four points for 2-3k depending on the night. Which means I was earning a free stay every 3-4 nights compared with now 500 Marriott points is earned, which is useless when the redemption is around 15k min for a room on average.
Good points John
[…] Danke: Milestomemories.boardingarea.com […]
So Marriott basically read the blogs to see the features customers liked the most and specifically targeted them all and nuked them. It’s almost like a giant advertisement not to put your trust or loyalty in them.
Credit card elite night stacking — one only now
10 Elite nights from meeting rooms — one only now
SPG cards earning 1.25 airline miles per dollar spent — 0.83 going fwd is worse than every airline card now
Nights and Flights travel packages — value blown to smitherines
Credit card signup bonuses — now need an advanced degree to decipher their rules and exclusions.
And their whole attitude toward announcing “enhancements” which actually just turn out to be slick marketing speak hoping to distract you from a devaluation or not delivering something they promised by adding a bunch of footnotes and exclusions…breakfast, late check-out, room upgrades, travel packages etc. I specifically remember their loyalty guy saying “We know how much our members like the travel packages and we are going to keep them.” Yeah, just going to raise the prices 40% and cut the airline miles you get for that by 20% too. They are just gross. I’m disgusted.
+1
There are a few things that just make no sense about all these “enhancements”. For starters, why make the new program take effect midyear? For another, if SPG loyalists are so valuable due to their extreme loyalty, why work so hard to destroy the very loyalty that makes them worth so much? Lastly, if Marriott values selling points to the credit card companies so much, do they really think that people are actually likely to spend more on cards that earn less, and accordingly, won’t that make customers even less loyal to the new, worse program?
Adding to the never ending stream of past/present/future bad news, there’s:
Making Starwood award bookings not available 18 months prior
Removing the 3 room credit for elite status with SPG
Needing a chart to figure out elite benefits at a given chain
No more elite credits through credit card spending with Marriott
Removal of guaranteed suite upgrades, where available for elites
25 stays for worthwhile elite status with Starwood
I know that there’s lots more, but those are just the points that spring to mind offhand. This whole new program that combines most of the worst aspects of both programs is singularly impressive in just how bad it really is. It’s like a slow motion train wreck.
+1
Amen to that brother.
Marriott making things worse for the customer. Not exactly a new theme. They certainly did a number on the Starwood loyalists, with lots more to come. Rather unfortunate, but it’s their company.