Your Marriott Bonvoy elite status will be extended by 12 months due to coronavirus

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• Chrisasaurus says:

  8 Apr8 April 20:27

  Well, beat me to it…

  I dont really see this is the right incentive, but it is a start. I would have thought a. accelerator for the remainder of 2020 makes more sense ! Assuming we are travelling in june 2x qualifying nights would encourage people back into hotels while allowing us to maintain status…

  I’d already got past platinum but for many people with more evenly distributed stays who are missing at least a full quarter this will be welcomed

  • TGLoyalty says:

    8 Apr8 April 20:38

    I don’t know how you can fault the move. Elite status earned in 2019 is now the status until Feb 2022.

    What I’ve learnt from this is that no matter what you do someone will complain because it doesn’t meet their specific needs.

    All I can hope for is a decent promo when this is all over to incentivise me to keep staying with Marriott.

    • Sam says:

      8 Apr8 April 21:46

      Good for you then, but we all know Marriott has demotivated a lot of other titanium and platinum members. This gist is that, this hard landing policy virtually ignores the situation surrounding late 2019 and the rest of 2020 when typically members (maybe not you but at least many others) would have made up their qualifying stay/night/points without sacrificing their benefits too much. This has been a practice for years, even back in the time of Marriott Rewards. I can understand the disappointment about why Marriott chooses to make such negative change at this time of uncertainty.

      Hilton is by far the most generous major chain – if you are Diamond now, you’ll be Diamond until 2021. If you’re gold, you’ll be gold until 2021. An extension is an extension, no more bs, that’s how Hilton gets things done.

      I’ve also learnt that customers would vote with their feet. Let’s wait and see Marriott’s and Hilton revenue figure at year end and see if Marriott can retain their loyal customer despite many has (or will be) gone.

    • Chrisasaurus says:

      9 Apr9 April 09:26

      What it does mean is that those of us travelling a lot in Q1 2020 have essentially got no utility from those stays, since our 2021 status is based on 2019, not 2020.

      As I said in my comment for me personally it’s a moot point, plat vs plat- but unless I can reach titanium in what is now likely to be 2/3 of a usable year at best, I may as well not have done those early 2020 stays at MR , they’d have been better served st HH for example where I would have regained diamond

• N says:

  8 Apr8 April 20:39

  An accelerator/challenge for those who dropped two status levels in one go in March is the least we can expect. Having dropped Titanium to Gold, I had made my plans for Q3/4 based on having Marriott Plat. I now get Gold till 2022? Great, I have that anyway from my Amex Plat.

  • TGLoyalty says:

    8 Apr8 April 20:49

    But you didn’t stay enough to earn Plat in 2019, so 2020 was going to be a different travel year to 2019?.

    You would have earned Plat in 2020 if you were staying in hotels in during March and April?

    • N says:

      8 Apr8 April 21:08

      But I had made a concerted (£££) effort to earn Titanium in 2018 so that I would have Titanium for 2019 and Plat for 2020. That was the deal as per Marriott’s reps on FT and their own forum.

      The status extension is good overall. But for me it makes no difference.

      • TGLoyalty says:

        8 Apr8 April 21:30

        Titanium replaced Platinum Premier Elite in Feb 2019. No one could have said what the soft landing policy for Bonvoy was in 2018.

        I know in 2019 there was talk from the FT lurkers that soft landings would be a thing but the T&C’s didn’t mention them at all.

        There’s only one sure fire way to guarantee status in any programme and that’s to follow the T&C’s and stay the nights required every year (plus Perhaps get a credit card)

        • Sam says:

          8 Apr8 April 21:58

          Sorry even if you follow the T&C, any hotel chain can change them at the last minute or of a very short notice because the company has the final right to choose whether to exercise their policy or not. Hilton does not promise a late checkout in the T&C, but a lot of them offers. Hilton does not promise an executive lounge access for gold members but lot of them (especially in Asia) offer this to gold members. And of course, Hilton T&C does not promise a genuine extension but they are doing this for you. Marriott of course did choose not to exercise their hard landing policy stated in the T&C until this year. If Marriott wanted to, they could as well assume Titanium as Platinum Premier Elite and exercised hard landings last year.

          So, at the end of the day it is hotel the decision maker, and for me the only one sure fire way to act in my best interest is looking at what the company does in the past and be smart about it in the future.

        • TGLoyalty says:

          8 Apr8 April 22:09

          Sam Agree T&C’s can change at any time.

          Hilton do offer late checkout but it’s not guaranteed and outside of Asia getting late checkout past 1pm is like getting blood out of a stone.

          RE Lounge access Golds ARE guaranteed lounge access if you are upgraded to an exec room.

• Dominic says:

  8 Apr8 April 21:10

  So I will now get free breakfast in 3 major hotel chains for all of next year! That’s a result, as I was only expecting it in one.

  Taking the positives from Covid-19…

• Sam says:

  8 Apr8 April 21:29

  This is known for a while and the email we received this morning was nothing new, more like a reminder to us only. This gist of the problem is not about extending – it is about that the extension basis. For Marriott it recalculates the number of s/n/p achieved in 2019 at the time of the adjustment, for Hilton simply extend the membership tier as of the date of adjustment. As such, a lot of Marriott members simply received a hard landing without an opportunity to make it up in let’s say 2021. In contrast, Hilton honours the extension on whatever you have. As long as you are a Diamond as of the adjustment date Hilton practically honours your Diamond until 2021. There is a BIG difference.
  We all know how difficult to get these statuses (especially for a tier like titanium) and the move of Marriott simply demotivates people.

• Peter K says:

  8 Apr8 April 21:55

  What this makes me think, and I have thought this for a while, is that Marriott only really cares about corporate customers who can make large numbers of stays and looks down on those who make a small number.

  You may think that’s obvious, as someone who stays 50 nights is obviously more valuable than someone who stays 10/20 nights a year. The problem is though, that if you alienate all the 10-20 night a year stayers you lose a lot of potential custom.

  • TGLoyalty says:

    8 Apr8 April 22:19

    Isn’t that approach the basis of all loyalty programmes with different tiers?

    The individual hotel can still look after you if you are loyal to them.

• Berneslai says:

  8 Apr8 April 22:00

  Meh. Dropped from Titanium Elite to Gold Elite and now I can ‘enjoy’ that status for a while longer. I’ve cancelled all my Marriott stays for Q3 and Q4 except my Ritz Carlton ones (they think I’m a scumbag whatever Marriott status I hold)

• Graeme says:

  8 Apr8 April 22:33

  If they could just follow this up with a drop in redemption costs, that’d be great!

  • Waddle says:

    9 Apr9 April 01:04

    And free breaky at Gold.

    • mvcvz says:

      9 Apr9 April 06:38

      Can’t even spell a childish abbreviation correctly.

      • Chrisasaurus says:

        9 Apr9 April 09:28

        U ok hon?

• Laura says:

  9 Apr9 April 06:04

  What about the tier status given via Amex Platinum

  • Rob says:

    9 Apr9 April 08:27

    I imagine it rolls too if you cancel Plat.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.