How much will you be charged for that hotel stay? The answer, of course, should be obvious: You’ll pay the published rate, plus government-imposed taxes and fees. Whatever that total turns out to be is your price.
27.07.2023 - 18:54 / smartertravel.com / Tim Winship
It’s a fact of loyalty-program life: Airline and hotel programs periodically adjust their award prices. Of course, those adjustments amount to price hikes more often than not. And, all things being equal, higher award prices amount to an overall devaluation of the program.
The best that program members can hope for is that the devaluations are modest in size and scope, rather than catastrophic.
The upcoming award changes just announced by Marriott can hardly be called modest.
Related:Wallet Watch: Passport Fees Increase on April 2Effective March 6, award prices at 1,329 Marriott Rewards hotels will change, with 1,082 properties rising in price versus price decreases at just 247 properties. The big picture: price changes at 26 percent of Marriott’s portfolio, with 21 percent increasing and 5 percent decreasing.
That’s a significant devaluation by any measure, and a thumb in the eye of Marriott Rewards members.
As always with upcoming award-price changes, program members should peruse the list of repriced properties, booking any award stays that will increase in price before March 6, and holding off until after the change to book stays that will become cheaper.
While the news is bad, Marriott gets points for giving Rewards members a month’s advance warning of the changes, and for communicating the changes clearly and transparently.
Reader Reality Check
Do these changes affect your relationship with Marriott Rewards?
More from SmarterTravel: Wallet Watch: Parking Fees Rise at 12 MGM Las Vegas Hotels Tip Your Uber Driver, or Else New Wyndham Hotels Promotion: 1 Free Night After 2 Paid StaysAfter 20 years working in the travel industry, and 15 years writing about it, Tim Winship knows a thing or two about travel. Follow him on Twitter @twinship.
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How much will you be charged for that hotel stay? The answer, of course, should be obvious: You’ll pay the published rate, plus government-imposed taxes and fees. Whatever that total turns out to be is your price.
As changes to hotel-program award prices go, the latest for InterContinental’s IHG Rewards are decidedly modest: Prices for award nights at 400 hotels will change by either 5,000 or 10,000 points, half moving up, half moving down. If it were just that 50-50 split, Rewards members might dismiss it as a wash and count their blessings. After all, “It could have been worse.”
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Marriott has just published its list of award-price changes for 2016. As Marriott Rewards members have come to expect from these annual pronouncements, the news amounts to yet another decrease in the value of their points.
Update from IHG, including effect date for new prices: “All reservations booked beginning Jan. 16, 2018, will use the new Reward Nights point prices. This is part of an annual review into the number of points needed for a Reward Night, and we’ll communicate to members through our regular channels, including email and our website.”
Hilton this week posted upcoming changes to HHonors award prices. While such announcements are almost never good news—and are sometimes positively gut-wrenching—this round of changes is so modest in scope that it’s practically a non-event.
Marriott has long been known as a corporation with a conscience.
The only thing worse than an increase in award prices: an award-price increase with no advance notice.
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