Unite Here has been bargaining unsuccessfully with Marriott to get a new agreement for mostly former Starwood legacy hotel employees whose contract has expired.
The trade union has roughly 20,000 members who work for Marriott of which close to 8,000 are on strike at 23 hotels in the US severely affecting the service levels at them (you should book away).
Marriott Rewards has historically allowed its members to make award reservations without having the required number of points in the account. Soon these Points Advance reservations will be available for legacy Starwood properties as well.
You are required to have the points in your account a minimum of 14 days before the intended stay or the stay is either canceled or converted to a Best Flexible stay as per the T&Cs of the program.
Last week, we wrote (access here) about Marriott Rewards points to airline miles conversions after several readers contacted us regarding these that used to work without a glitch with both legacy Marriott and SPG programs (like many other things).
Members weren’t receiving the miles that they were promised by Marriott Rewards, the process was taking much longer than usually and customer service was not replying to support messages sent.
Yesterday, I wrote a piece (access here) about logging in to SPG where I was presented with Marriott’s website and merely using the Starwood credential to access it.
Seems that everything is back to the previous normal today meaning you are on the Marriott Rewards website that shows still shows the SPG branding, although there are no longer SPG accounts in reality (they are only a flag on Marriott’s database).
A LoyaltyLobby reader dropped us a Tweet to a blog post (access here) where Le Meridien Tahiti had emailed reservation holders that they would exit Marriott/SPG system on October 15, 2018 to become Le Tahiti la Ora Beach Resort by Sofitel.
There have been quite a few former legacy Starwood hotel exits of Marriott system as of late that was expected. Merger gave them a good excuse to explore other options available and get out of contracts without paying a significant penalty.
When I was logging in to my SPG account today, I was represented with Marriott Rewards to which I would have signed in using my “SPG” credentials.
Well. There haven’t been SPG accounts since August 18th like there have never been Ritz-Carlton Rewards accounts. SPG accounts have been Marriott Rewards accounts since the program merger and you have merely presented different branding on your online accounts.
Marriott Rewards & SPG launched their first combined MegaBonus on September 26 that is valid for stays through January 31, 2019.
Today, Marriott Rewards added additional brand bonused to the MegaBonus. Members that stay at 10 brands during the MegaBonus will receive an additional 10,000 points and those that stay at all 29 get 29,000 points.
Marriott Rewards was supposed to launch week ago its 29 Ways sweepstakes but indefinitely delayed it for an unknown reason. A LoyaltyLobby reader alerted us that the T&Cs have now been updated to indicate that the sweepstakes are going live in about 30 minutes or so.
Marriott Rewards launched these sweepstakes to celebrate its first MegaBonus that applies to all 29 of its legacy Marriott and SPG brands. There are more than 2,000,000 instant win prizes that can be won daily during the 4-week long period when this competition runs (should end on November 8).
Several readers have contacted us regarding issues they have with Marriott Rewards points to airline miles conversions that used to work without a glitch with both legacy Marriott and SPG programs (like many other things).
Seems that now these transfers can take weeks and Marriott Rewards shortchanges members on number of miles that are actually moved to airline accounts.
New York Times yesterday run a story about Marriott Rewards and SPG related merger issues that come no surprise to any of our readers as we have covered them all previously.
NYT readers have had the same issues with hour long wait times reaching agents, missing stays and points, trouble combining accounts and complete meltdown in customer service.
Marriott Rewards has today sent out emails to select members offering them a free night certificate (max 35,000 points) after two stays between October 15 – December 31, 2018.
The offer only requires registration and two stays between the valid promotional dates at any Marriott brands excluding ExecuStay and Executive Apartments.
We are now ten days short of two months since Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) accounts were moved to the Marriott Rewards platform and pretty much everything that could have gone wrong… did.
I noted at the time, that one of the pitfalls which was when SPG members were issued all new membership numbers. This meant that the stay history associated with the legacy number was lost unless Marriott ensured that proper mapping was done at the property level (new number linked with the old one – stay history followed).
Here’s look at the top 5 most lucrative hotel promotions that you can take advantage of this month.
Remember that it really pays to take advantage of bonus and promotional offers from hotel loyalty programs. You can supercharge your point earnings!
Marriott Rewards & SPG were supposed to launch on October 4, 2018 – 29 Ways sweepstakes lasting for four weeks with more than 2,000,000 instant win prizes (read more here).
Less than an hour before the giveaway was going live we got a word that it had been delayed. Both the reason for the delay and the duration are unclear.
