No matter how much you travel, there’s no escaping Marriott’s popularity. After merging with Starwood Hotels and Resorts, it became the largest hotel chain in the world more than 7,600 objects from 2020 in 134 countries. As a result, frequent travelers have come to rely on the chain as a reliable accommodation option when on the move. But after a surprise policy change, Marriott says it won’t be offering anything to guests at its hotels going forward. Read on to see what the iconic hospitality brand is getting rid of with immediate effect.
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If you’re a Marriott supporter, planning your next trip might not turn out the way you planned after the company announced it was getting rid of its Hotel and air travel packages for his guests, Gary Leff was first reported by travel news agency View From the Wing. The company also hasn’t announced a replacement for the option that allowed its Bonvoy rewards members to redeem points a hotel stay and frequent flyer miles which could be used to purchase airline tickets.
“The popularity of travel packages has steadily decreased”, John Wolf, Marriott’s vice president of loyalty, told travel news outlet The Points Guy in an official confirmation of the change on Jan. 19.”
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Aside from travel packages being unavailable for the future, the sudden policy change also means some people who may have bought the option with their points are now in a Time pressure to use them. According to Wolf, customers who purchased the discontinued package must contact Marriott by February 28, 2022 to redeem the hotel portion of the package. Anyone who doesn’t redeem their stay by then will continue to receive points refunded based on the maximum rates set by the hotel, reports The Points Guy. However, the frequent flyer mileage portion of the package is now fully non-refundable and must be used as such.
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According to the company, the travel packages offered by Marriott may not have been the most popular offering. However, experts point out that the dropping of the packages could be a signal that this could be the case soon harder to get that much value out of the rewards program as it once was possible.
“The use case for these certificates has been limited in recent years, so the actual loss here is minimal,” Leff wrote in the original blog post covering the change. “But these travel packages have played such an important role for so long that if they pull outsize value from the program, eliminating them entirely still feels like part of the resolution for guests.”
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This isn’t the only time Marriott has rubbed its guests the wrong way with one of its policies. In October, several Marriott customers complained on Twitter Resort fees will be added to the cost of their stay. “PRent update your resort hotel info pages to include them applicable resort fee. Finding out during the booking process is not customer centric,” one user tweeted on Oct. 18. Another noted: “Booked via app in May Marriott New York downtown in Sept. No resort fee. I logged into the app last night to see that a “Target Fee” of $125 per stay has since been added. For wifi I already get platinum [member]. Impressive!”
According to The Wall Street Journal, these resort fees, sometimes referred to as “destination amenity fees,” range from anywhere another $9 to $95. These fees are required to book a room online and appear to cover a range of amenities, including high-speed Internet access and free bottled water upon check-in. C. Patrick Scholes, a lodging analyst at Truist Securities Inc, told the news outlet that these fees were originally charged at beachfront hotels and other resorts to cover extra costs like free beach towels, but are now being added to hotels in cities and other locations.
Attorney General for the District of Columbia in the summer of 2019 Karl A Racine filed a lawsuit against Marriott International, Inc. for these resort fees. According to the lawsuit, Marriott violates consumer protection laws by only disclosing these fees during the booking process and not upfront when customers view hotel prices. “Bait-and-switch advertising and deceptive pricing practices are illegal,” Racine said in a 2019 statement.
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