The travel industry is a competitive one.
There’s no shortage of either airlines or hotel chains to stay at, plus these days hotels have to compete with Airbnb and other online home exchange platforms.
Every airline and hotel chain, of course, tries to differentiate itself in some way, either by focusing on the customer experience like Southwest (although employees have some thoughts on that these days) or Frontier, which will give you the cheapest possible flight, and not much else.
There’s a longstanding debate in the tourism industry as to whether customers care about value and saving money first and foremost, or whether they really want good service most of all.
Either way, unless someone really pays a great deal of attention to the tourism industry, they may not be too inclined to really care about the difference between the various chains, as long as they can get where they are going and have a nice and not too expensive experience once they arrive.
So loyalty plans and reward members are a way to help lock in a customer base and keep them coming back, and companies will partner together to try lure in potential new customers.
The luxury hotel chain Marriott Bonvoy (MAR) launched a new customer loyalty program in 2019 that combined three previous rewards programs: Marriott Rewards, Ritz-Carlton Rewards, and Starwood Preferred Guest.
But now the company has quietly made a change to its rewards program that frequent flyers are not going to care for.
What Change Has Marriott Bonvoy Made?
At the end of October, Marriott Bonvoy will discontinue its 5,000 bonus points-to-miles incentive with American Airlines (AAL), as reported by The Points Guy.
Previously, if you were member of both Marriott Bonvoy’s loyalty program and a member of American Airlines’s AAdvantage program, you could exchange points between the two, so in essence you could use the loyalty points from Marriott towards the miles needed for a free flight. The soon to be shuttered plan came with the added benefit of a 5,000-mile bonus for every 60,000 points you transfer from Marriott to a participating airline.
As explained by The Points Guy, “So, transferring 60,000 Marriott Bonvoy points to AAdvantage would get you 25,000 American miles (an effective transfer ratio of 2.4:1). However, starting Oct. 31, Marriott will end the transfer bonus. Then the effective transfer ratio will drop to 3:1.”
Marriott Bonvoy has confirmed the change, and will also end a similar program with Delta SkyMiles (DAL) and Avianca LifeMiles (AVHOQ) , but their website has not been updated to reflect the change.
Image source: Shutterstock
Why Did Marriott Bonvoy Drop The Bonus Miles?
Now, this change isn’t the end of the world. You can still transfer points you get from staying at a hotel towards a free flight. But who doesn’t like bonus miles?
That said, The Points Guys has expressed a frustration that people who enjoyed this perk are no doubt experiencing:
“It's never good to see a loyalty program remove benefits its members enjoy. And it's disappointing that Marriott only emailed some of its members about this impending change,” adding “I suspect these are only the first programs that will likely lose this bonus over the coming months and years. “
Marriott hasn’t announced why they made this change, but the most likely reason is that with inflation continuing and recession fears growing, everyone has to cut back, and bonus miles are, perhaps, a perk the company may feel it can’t afford at the moment.
So if you’re a member of both programs and looking to make that trade, you have until the end of the month to do so.
