One Good Thing From The Marriott Starwood Takeover?

There won’t be too many regular Starwood guests that are looking forward to the Marriott take over that’s in the works. As I explained back in November (Starwood/Marriott Tie-up – Why The Big Fuss?) there are some very significant differences between how the two hotel groups manage their loyalty programs so the consternation being heard from Starwood elites is understandable.

As a Marriott Platinum elite I guess most people would expect me to be happy about the tie up between the two hotel chains – I should have more upscale hotels to choose from and more aspirational awards to redeem if the takeover goes through – but I’m not that happy about the merger either.

Competition is the friend of the consumer and, generally speaking, the enemy of the corporation. As a consumer I want to see as much competition in the marketplace as possible and I want to see as many chains as possible vying for my business. Mergers reduce competition and, almost inevitably, mean a reduction in benefits to guests. That’s not good.

There is, however, a possibility of one tiny silver lining to the proposed Marriott takeover of Starwood. You have to look pretty hard to see the possibility and it relies on Marriott continuing to do things as they’ve always done…but I still think it’s worth a mention.

The Starwood Annoyance

One of the biggest frustrations I have with Starwood’s loyalty program (SPG) is that it allows some hotels to pick and choose just how much participation they want to have within SPG and these hotels get to charge truly extortionate rates for award redemptions.

Not only that but you can’t even book an award night online…you have to call up to find out just how many Starpoints they want to gouge you for and to find if there is any availability – welcome to the 1990’s.

It wouldn’t be so bad if these were properties that most people couldn’t care less about, but they’re not. The properties that fit into this category are almost always the more aspirational properties…like those in Bora Bora:

These are Category 7 Hotels in the SPG chart so, as you can see from the table taken from SPG.com (below), would ordinarily cost 30,000-35,000 Starpoints per night….

…but not for these properties.

A quick call to a very helpful SPG agent revealed that the cheapest nightly rate available at the St Regis costs 60,000 Starpoints and the cheapest at the Le Meridien costs 87,500 Starpoints. Wow.

This isn’t only limited to Bora Bora…it get worse if you’d like to redeem your Starpoints at the W Retreat & Spa – Maldives:

Image courtesy of Starwood

This is another SPG Category 7 property so, again, should cost 30,000-35,000 Starpoints per night…but it doesn’t.

Per the same SPG agent that gave me the costs for the Bora Bora properties, this resort costs an unbelievable 90,000 Starpoints per night.

Starwood will argue that their regular award chart is for standard rooms only and that guests booking into these hotels would be booking into suites…but that doesn’t quite work for them either.

Firstly, there are no “standard” rooms at these hotels so guests have no option but to pay the inflated price for a suite – hotel chains like IHG choose not to gouge guests the same way.

One of IHG’s most aspirational properties is the InterContinental Bora Bora Resort Thalasso Spa and the “basic” room at this property is an overwater bungalow – there is nothing smaller:

Despite this, IHG still only charges 50,000 IHG Rewards points for a night at this hotel just as it does at any other top-end InterContinental around the world. Whether you’re staying in a regular room at the InterContinental Amstel Amsterdam or in an overwater bungalow in Bora Bora you still only pay 50,000 IHG Rewards points…and that’s how it should be, that’s the point of having aspirational awards.

Furthermore, another award chart I found online shows that a suite upgrade for a Category 7 property should be a further 30,000-35,000 Starpoints per night:

So how come the W Maldives is allowed to charge 90,000 Starpoints per night?

I asked the SPG agent what room I was being offered and he confirmed that it was a Category 3 suite that the W Maldives was selling. That sounded impressive until I found out that that was the lowest category room the resort offered. It’s a deliberate rip-off.

There are quite a few properties like this within the Starwood portfolio so it’s not just limited to idyllic resorts in the Indian and Pacific oceans (I just used those as examples).

So What Can Marriott Do?

Clearly I’m just speculating here as no one really knows how the Starwood portfolio will be folded into the Marriott system but here are a few thoughts:

First of all, as far as I can tell, Marriott doesn’t have any properties whose award night costs you can’t find online and whose rooms you cannot book online with Marriott Rewards points.

If nothing else good comes out of the Marriott/Starwood merger, guests should be able to see what dates are available for award redemptions for every hotel and how much award redemptions will cost at those hotels. The need to call up to check availability and cost should be a thing of the past.

Also, all of Marriott’s hotels, even the Ritz-Carlton hotels, offer the option of a standard room that can be redeemed at the basic rate appropriate to the category to which they’ve been assigned.

Ritz-Carlton award chart

If a guest wants a higher grade room the option to upgrade is available at select hotels:

With a little bit of luck (and, admittedly, a lot of wishful thinking), it’s possible that Marriott could incorporate the higher-end Starwood hotels into a similar system to the Ritz-Carltons.

Yes, the standard rooms at the Ritz-Carltons aren’t suites (like at the W Maldives) but I’ve already shown that at least one other major hotel chain has set a precedent where that doesn’t matter.

Bottom Line

Award nights should be seen a reward for being loyal to a hotel chain and, as such, shouldn’t be out of reasonable reach. No one wants to waste their Starpoints (probably the hardest loyalty currency to earn) on a Category 2 hotel in Fresno – guests want to be able to have those once-in-a-lifetime trips and stay at hotels like the ones I’ve been mentioning.

IHG allows regular-priced redemptions at their flagship properties, Hyatt does the same for the Park Hyatt Maldives and even Hilton’s top-end properties aren’t as out of reach as the W Maldives so I see no reason why Starwood’s properties should be unique.

If the link-up with Marriott puts this practice at Starwood to an end at least there will have been one good thing to come out of the merger.