Quick update – May 18: I originally wrote this as a benefit loss for Platinum members. As reader Nick points out in the comments, this affects Platinum, Titanium, and even Ambassador level elite members. So at no elite tier does Marriott Bonvoy offer a guaranteed base level suite if available at check-in for the entire length of your stay as before. This is a tremendous program devaluation.
Original article (which was focused on Platinum but now just read it as Platinum and above) is below.
If you are Lifetime Platinum, like me, you should be especially outraged – and really give Marriott hell about this move, which I’ll get to in a second because I’m in <rant mode>.
But I also can’t see I didn’t see a status devaluation coming ever since they starting giving Platinum status away like candy with the Bonvoy Brilliant credit card (pay the annual fee and get Platinum status).
Keep in mind that historically, since the SPG merger, Platinum has been the base level premium tier (it was called Gold under the original Marriott program, pre-merger).
What I mean is that it is the tier that has confirmed breakfast (in some way – try to decipher the charts on what brands where have to give what!), lounge access when there is a lounge, guaranteed 4pm late checkout (excluding resorts and conference center hotels), and a guaranteed upgrade to a base-level suite if available at check-in for the entire length of your stay.
Whereas Bonvoy Silver and Gold members are theoretically entitled to a better room (higher floor, etc), Platinum is was where you were supposed to get Club Level or even a suite (Ritz excluded!) if available. i.e. the best room available at check-in, but excluding suites above the base level.
Just two days ago, we learned that Bonvoy added in the possibility of suite upgrades for Platinums at Ritz Carlton.
Well, Gary at View from a Wing has discovered that the very same change (which is actually from an April 30th change to the Bonvoy Terms and Conditions), took away more than it gave – in a big, big way.
As Gary notes, the terms changed (and the bolding is Gary’s but I’ll include as it makes it crystal clear) as follows:
Old Terms:
Complimentary Enhanced Room Upgrade for Platinum Elite Members. Platinum Elite Members and above receive a complimentary upgrade to the best available room, subject to availability upon arrival, for the entire length of stay. Complimentary upgrade includes suites, rooms with desirable views, rooms on high floors, corner rooms, rooms with special amenities or rooms on Executive Floors. At The Ritz-Carlton, suites are only included for Titanium Elite and Ambassador Elite Members and rooms with direct Club access are excluded. Enhanced Room Upgrades are subject to availability and are identified by each Participating Property. The Complimentary Enhanced Room Upgrade for Platinum Elite Members and above is available at all Participating Brands except at StudioRes, Limited Sonder Properties, Marriott Vacation Club, Marriott Grand Residence Club, Sheraton Vacation Club, Westin Vacation Club, The Phoenician Residences, a Luxury Collection Residence Club, Scottsdale, and Ritz-Carlton Reserve.
Terms from April 30, 2025:
Complimentary Enhanced Room Upgrade for Platinum Elite Members. Platinum Elite Members and above receive a complimentary upgrade, subject to availability upon arrival, for the entire length of stay. Complimentary upgrade includes suites, rooms with desirable views, rooms on high floors, corner rooms, rooms with special amenities or rooms on Executive Floors. At The Ritz-Carlton, rooms with direct Club access are excluded. The Complimentary Enhanced Room Upgrade for Platinum Elite Members and above is available at all Participating Brands except at StudioRes, Limited Sonder Properties, Marriott Vacation Club, Marriott Grand Residence Club, Sheraton Vacation Club, Westin Vacation Club, The Phoenician Residences, a Luxury Collection Residence Club, Scottsdale, and Ritz-Carlton Reserve.
Now, for sure Gary takes Marriott to task for this, pointing out that they already changed Suite Upgrade Awards to Nightly Upgrade awards, hoping you’ll opt to use those for upgraded rooms that aren’t suites, and for allowing hotels to get away with not honoring terms and conditions as they see fit, whereas those of us that remember SPG remember that SPG was so serious about hotel compliance with elite benefits that they got charged when a guest filed a complaint – making it advantageous to the property to fix any issues on site and avoid the fee for the support ticket.
And he’s right – I regularly tell people that ask me about whether they should be loyal to Marriott to not expect to get any elite benefits without a fight – and often not even then. It’s not even fun anymore – when often just a request for a “guaranteed” late checkout is denied unless you make a huge stink about it.
And Gary is also very blunt – as I think I’m known for as well – and while he was harder on Hilton with Thursday’s devaluation than I was, I’m going to get a bit more heated on this one.
Perhaps Gary has gotten so used to Marriott Bonvoy’s constant slide downhill that this change didn’t rile him up as much as me. Maybe he was in a good mood today.
But this is a BIG DEAL. A really big deal.
Marriott doesn’t let you earn a lifetime status above Platinum.
If you were SPG Lifetime Platinum, they give you lifetime Bonvoy Titanium (one level above Platinum) but that opportunity ended with the merger. And I guess it’s fitting that clicking the link to Lifetime Platinum benefits leads to a Not Found page.
I *finally* earned lifetime Platinum with Marriott (combined with SPG) last year. I know MANY of you have WAY more nights and years as Platinum, but this is far from a lack of loyalty.
But yet, now a key feature of my hard-earned status – suites when available – has been removed. I have no recourse if a hotel’s most basic suite is available and I don’t get it, because I’m no longer entitled to it.
It would be easy to make the argument that I should just go ahead and earn Titanium status “if you care so much” someone will surely say. I have a Marriott Bonvoy Bonvoy Brilliant and a Bonvoy Business credit card, so I do get a 40 night head start. The thing is, Marriott has slowly lost its grip on me “caring” about staying with them. I feel no sense of loyalty back from them like I did with SPG. It’s Hyatt that has, in many ways, become the new SPG.
At top tier Globalist, you get a real concierge (and while there are bad Hyatt “My Concierge” reps, there are far, far more complaints about bad Marriott Ambassador reps). And that would line up with Marriott’s top tier Ambassador status, requiring not just 40 more elite nights than Hyatt, but $24,000 in spend as well (so award nights count as elite nights but if you don’t spend enough, you stay Titanium).
And at Hyatt, I’m getting proactive upgrades to Standard Suites (a term of the program if available for the length of your stay), Suite Night Awards where I can advance upgrade into a suite for up to 7 nights (whereas Bonvoy gives you a choice to get 5 whole Nightly Upgrade Awards after 50 nights stayed – and that’s just 5 nights, not 5 stays!)
Plus, they don’t even confirm Nightly Upgrade Awards until 5 days in advance while Hyatt’s are at booking. And I almost never have to beg for a 4pm checkout like I do at Marriott.
But at least when staying at Marriott, I knew what my Platinum status entitled me to and even if I sometimes needed a manager, I usually got what was promised. Now, they’ve taken away a rather big promise, making the entire Platinum elite tier less valuable.
I understand why they might want to do this, quite possibly from hotels complaining that they don’t want to pay to clean every suite (which does take around twice as long for a housekeeper on average, driving up housekeeping costs) and the fact that giving Bonvoy Brilliant cardholders Platinum status probably drove up the ranks of Platinums so high that indeed every standard suite at a hotel (that followed the rules) was probably being filled.
So this saves hotel costs. And that should remind you that while in all cases both the hotel and the customer are the customers of hotel chains, Marriott is ever more treating the hotel as the main customer and you as the ancillary one.
If there’s little pushback on this change, and my guess is so few even knew it was a guaranteed benefit in the first place they won’t know what they lost, we may see more benefit losses to the “credit card tier” – and that really screws over those that actually earned it the hard way – whether as lifetime or on a yearly basis.
So, what do you think? Is my rage here justified? Or am I overreacting?
Thoughts?
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Look, it’s not even about platinum. It would have been one thing if they took away the best room available verbiage for platinums. But they didn’t keep it for ambassadors — people who spend at least $23,000 per year. Sure, some hotels will still give suites. But the fact that ambassadors are no longer entitled to a suite if a suite is available at check-in is absurd. It’s more than absurd, actually. It’s outrageous. Why should anyone chase Marriott status any longer, let alone spend $23,000 to keep ambassador? Now besides getting screwed on breakfast — there are properties that refuse to give coffee to elites because, unlike Hyatt and IHG, Marriott’s terms don’t define breakfast — you’re getting screwed out of a suite at 8 pm on a Sunday night in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
@Nick: I don’t know how I missed this. Updating article and dropping a quick follow up piece.
I didn’t realize that Titanium and Ambassador use the “same benefits as Platinum above” verbiage. Crazy.
It’s crazy that for the last 7 years (since Bonvoy launched in 2018) that platinums have ever had unlimited suite upgrades. Same for club lounge access. Platinums should have had four or five certificates for upgrades and lounge access that they could have redeemed every year. Titaniums should have had suite upgrades up to standard suites. Ambassadors should have had best-available room or suite.
Similar for breakfast. Ambassadors should always have a restaurant breakfast option if the hotel has a restaurant. I’ve been ambassador every year since 2018. I’ve overlooked a lot, including being told I couldn’t have coffee with my breakfast.
This was the final straw. If this isn’t reversed, I’ll liquidate my 5 million Bonvoy points and cancel my remaining stays for 2025 and forgo requalification. I already have most of the 100 nights but not the spend.
Dear Dave:
This is no big at all. All Marriott has done is to clarify what has been their upgrades policy all along. You wrote that “Platinum and above” were “entitled” to suite upgrades when available. The key word is available, which, in every program, is at the sole discretion of each hotel.
What that means is that in every program — including in World of Hyatt that you and everyone gushes about about — each property sets aside a limited number of room/suites that can be used for redeeming with points or for upgrades (up to introductory suites for top elites), and when those rooms or suites that we set aside are gone, no more award redemptions or room upgrades (including suites) are possible, even when a hotel’s website still shows standard rooms/suites available for sale.
The reference point for “best room available” is is not every room/suite in a hotel, but the limited number of rooms/suites that a hotel sets aside for redeeming with points or for upgrades. That number is determined by a statistical model that tries to guess how may rooms/suites a hotel is likely to sell at a given time, and then anything above that is set aside for booking with points or for upgrades. The short of it is that in every single hotel loyalty program, including WoH, rooms/suites for reward booking or for upgrades are <b capacity controlled, where only a small subset of rooms in a property is set aside for booking with points or for upgrades. When that’s gone, then you’re out of luck, regardless of what a hotel’s website may show.
What Bonvoy has just done is to clarify the language so that its Platinum members and up would no longer feel “entitled” to upgrades when the number of limited rooms/suites set aside for that purpose has all been used up. The amended language simply prevents elite members from writing or calling the program to complain that they were refused a suite upgrade when suites were clearly still available for sale. That is not a bug or “hotels playing games with inventory”; it is a feature of every program.
The Bonvoy T&C said that availability was at the discretion of each hotel, which it is, meaning that each hotel has the final word. However, self-anointed “travel gurus” believed that they knew better, so they pushed the falsehood that hotels were required to upgrade elites to suites if available. Now Marriott has finally returned the full discretion to give suites to the hotels.
You are Bonvoy Platinum. What I just stated above should explain to you why things never seemed to work as you they should have, based on your outrage about what is an immaterial change in language.
It’s really that simple.