Reader Email: Isn’t The Marriott Years Behind Us?

A LoyaltyLobby reader sent us an email about ongoing issues with Marriott that have plagued the system ever since the Marriott Rewards & SPG loyalty program merger.

Readers are encouraged to send us questions, comments, or opinions by email, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. We’ll try to cover them here several times a week.

You can access Marriott Bonvoy here.

READ MORE: Marriott Bonvoy Rate & Bonus Points Offers

Email From The Reader:

Just wondering what else I can do to ensure my Bonvoy points track automatically to my Ambassador Account with Marriott.

Yes, that is correct, just so everyone know Ambassadors are not immune from late arriving (or in my case never arriving) Bonvoy points as I have Ambassador status.

When I was a Starwood Loyalist my points always tracked automatically, and so did my amenity points.  In fact Starwood did a much better job giving you a breakdown as they broke down every credit, so you saw your base Starpoints, your bonus Starpoints, your amenity points, plus any other bonus, so there was never any question that you received all of your points.

For my latest stay at the Marriott Waikiki in April, no points.  I always book directly with Marriott, I ask when I check in if my Bonvoy number is on my reservation as lately Marriott is lacking acknowledging my membership, and since Marriott still has difficulty crediting my account correctly I am back taking a paper copy of my hotel portfolio when checking out as I have to submit that portfolio to get my points, still.

Since Starwood did it so well for twenty years, why does Marriott still have difficulty?

I do get it, Starwood had their own systems all in house and Marriott vendors their reservations and Bonvoy point system out, or in other words they outsource this so very important heart of their business.

Why would anyone risk that in this day and age knowing of social media and knowing in the hotel business everyone want’s those customers that drive their business.

Too bad Marriott has yet to learn this as I am not the only member who still chases their Bonvoy points.  I have to wonder why Marriott still struggles with this concept and I have little hope they will get this right.

Since Covid Ambassador has trickled down to a “group” of reservation agents, so all of the personal touch my old Starwood Ambassadors use to provide is sadly gone.  It’s a whole new world.

Well. The reader certainly is not alone in wondering about these very same issues that don’t appear to be important to Marriott because they have not been fixed.

How difficult can it be to have a proper breakdown of earned points like all other loyalty programs are capable of providing and have stays promptly posted to member accounts? Some could argue that Marriott obfuscates things so that they can collect fees and loyalty revenue from hotels and never actually credit the points to members.

There must be billions of points yearly that never reach eligible member accounts due to this.

Conclusion

Marriott has never been good at IT and has, for a very long time, relied heavily on manual processes that employees at affiliated hotels simply hate.

The only solution to this issue is to move your business from Marriott to other hotel operators (s) or independent hotels that have their act together. Unfortunately, at this point, there isn’t any hope that Marriott intends ever to fix these issues.

We frequently received emails and comments such as the one above, but I guess that many former SPG members have just given up with Marriott by now.