Skift Take
How much do we want to bet that the new loyalty brand that debuts next year turns out to be Marriott Preferred Guest? Or better yet, just Marriott Rewards?
It's the moment 110 million travelers have been waiting for since 2016.
Today, Marriott announced how the company will formally unite all three of its hotel loyalty programs — Marriott Rewards, The Ritz-Carlton Rewards, and Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG).
But instead of debuting a single new program that replaces and combines all three into one, Marriott has decided to keep all three programs as is — for now. Beginning in August, members of each program will have the seamless ability to book stays and earn or redeem points across 29 of Marriott's 30 hotel brands, comprising more than 6,500 hotels around the world.
By early next year, the company expects to debut a new loyalty brand that will replace the three, as well as a new single reservations system. Until then, the three loyalty brands and sites will remain in place, but members will have a single account with the same membership number, and the same set of benefits beginning in August.
Currently, when a Marriott Rewards member wants to book travel or earn or redeem points, she will only see hotels from Marriott 18 legacy brands when she logs onto her Marriott Rewards account. The same applied to SPG members, who would only see hotels from Starwood's 11 legacy brands.
As soon as Marriott finalized its $13.3-billion acquisition of Starwood Hotels & Resorts in September, 2016, it did allow members of all three programs to link their accounts, however, and to have matching status. So, an SPG member could link his account to a Marriott Rewards account to exchange points, and vice versa.
With the new unified program scheme, the 110 million members of all three programs will be able to earn and redeem points at hotels from all of Marriott's brands when they log onto their respective accounts, with the exception of the company's luxury Bulgari Hotel properties. They will also have access to the same set of benefits, which includes 110,000 different experiences in 1,000 destinations around the world, and a single set of membership status tiers.
The Best of Both?
For many frequent travelers, one of their biggest concerns related to the Marriott-Starwood merger was what would eventually happen to the loyalty programs.
Faithful SPG members were especially concerned that when SPG was eventually combined with Marriott Rewards, many of the elite perks that they benefited from would
