Marriott has sent out a communication to its Bonvoy frequent guest program members this week announcing the program enhancements for 2021 that will help many members to keep their status intact in this challenging travel environment.
Bonvoy members received a special notice to stop emailing specific employees who handle Ambassador requests because those addresses would be turned off and no longer monitored.
You can access Marriott Bonvoy’s page for Ambassador benefits here.
READ MORE: Marriott Bonvoy Rate & Bonus Points And Miles Promotions
Here’s what has happened with Ambassador service most recently:
Marriott has taken down the Starwood YouTube video that featured the Ambassador program, please send me a link if you find it:
Conclusion
You could argue that Marriott has never understood loyalty and still doesn’t.
It didn’t much matter when most of their hotels were select service yards or inns and a few cookie-cutter Marriott boxes at city and leisure destinations around the Americas.
Marriott considers its loyalty program members mainly as a cheap distribution channel per comments made on a recent corporate earnings call, and it shows.
The purpose of the Ambassador service, when Starwood launched it, was to offer genuinely world-class service and have a one-stop contact for all hotel-related issues from bookings to upgrades and after stay follow-ups.
SPG also partially devalued the program when it was made public from a trial, and a requirement of 100 nights per calendar year was set
Marriott further “enhanced” it by first doubling the number of accounts that each Ambassador was supposed to handle to more than 300 and then 500 or so, making it impossible to deliver the promise that was made to these members who spent more than 100 nights and $20,000 at their hotels yearly.
Many Ambassadors left, and the quality contact center that mainly handled these requests in Canada was closed, and employees laid off.
I have said it before, and I will repeat it, if you stay 100+ nights per year at hotels, you should stop crediting to Marriott at 75 and build up a top tier status with one or more of their competitors. I see absolutely zero reasons for trying to reach the current Ambassador status with Marriott.
Totally agree.
Ambassador service is useless at Marriott.
I miss SPG so much!
Wholeheartedly agree!
Agree its not longer worth it. I understand that a majority of the leadership team who started and ran the Ambassador program have left or been let go by Marriott. Marriott clearly does not understand the value and brand power a two-way loyalty program can bring.
how many hotel nights do you think the average guest is bringing to them this year vs. pre-crisis? If you want them to have pre-crisis levels of service why don’t you do your part and increase your guest nights?
You think the money to pay for this comes out of the ground?
Sorry, I don’t tithe to these people. They need to make the first move to attract customers and make people want to patronize their business. As I said earlier, it’s a two-way street but I don’t think Marriott understands that is the key to successful loyalty.
This is written like there is no crisis going on.
Rather disconnected from reality.
With occupancy in the toilet they have no choice but to cut back. Disconnecting individual email addresses means they can maintain a lower latency between guest requests and answering those requests than they otherwise would be. This lets them do things like reduce hours and shifts.
The alternative is you’re going to email your ambassador and not get an answer for two days then be screaming at the top of your voice on your blog that the service level is down.
Yeah it sucks, but the reality of it is these companies are on the brink of death. We are all better off, employees, management, guests, shareholders if they survive.
Take off the DYKWIA cap just for a few months here.
Two things to note here former SPG’ers. Once Marriott takes something away in loyalty or lounges or benefits, even if just “temporary”, its never, ever coming back. Also, crisis or not, Marriott overpaid handsomely for SPG and now has to pay for it somehow. 25+ year LT Titanium and even longer as a Merger/Acquisition/Takeover survivor!
It has been useless for a long time and my ambassador left a long time ago they are at least publicly saying do not expect anything from us.