For Marriott loyalists, Ambassador Elite status is the pinnacle. A holdover from the SPG days – and as the name suggests – customers that meet the qualifications get a single point of contact to deal with all things Marriott. In addition, the members get access to the (questionable) Your24 benefit, where theoretically, you can check into a hotel at 10pm after a late flight, and check out at 10pm the following night. I’ve never had success with it and I know a host of others that haven’t as well (it’s up to the hotel’s discretion).
So how do you earn such a status? It used to be that SPG required 100 nights to earn Ambassador status. Since the merger, Marriott has introduced a $20,000 spend requirement as of 2019, which translates to a $200/night average. If you have a Marriott credit card with annual 15 night credit, then the nightly average jumps to about $235.
How the status has evolved
Let me backtrack by stating that even Platinum (50 nights) with SPG was a legendary status. The differentiation between SPG Platinum and the upper levels of Platinum (Plat75 and Ambassador) were much larger than the differentiation between Marriott Platinum, Titanium, and Ambassador. I held Ambassador status with SPG for about three years, which meant for three years, I was pretty much treated as royalty at the hotels I stayed. I frequently got big suite upgrades, along with beer, wine, and snacks waiting for me in my room (ambassadors ask for food and drink preferences upon status achievement).
The true perk of the status is the single point of contact. If I have any issue with a hotel – an incorrect folio, poor service, or even lost item – I can throw that over the fence to my ambassador who will handle it for me. Further, when trying to plan special occasions, having one person to work with makes a huge difference.
The other big perk is that Ambassador Elite members are theoretically supposed to be at the top of the upgrade queue. I’ll get into this more in a bit.
Overall, I used to think it was worth it to do a mattress run if I was close to achieve Ambassador status. These days, I don’t think it is (especially if you’re short on the spend requirement).
The biggest change is that Marriott is the first word in the program and not Starwood. With that came lots of things, most notably a huge influx of people. Starwood – like Hyatt these days – was always more of a boutique option for hotels. Members had to go out of their way to stay at SPG properties, and in turn, were handsomely rewarded. No matter how high end the property was, elites were always given free breakfast and the ability to upgrade to suites. In fact, the language of the SPG program mandated that if a suite was available at check-in, the hotel must give it to an elite.
These days, you could trip on the sidewalk, look up, and see a Marriott property (almost 8,000 hotels worldwide, compared to Starwood’s 1,500 at the time of merger). With the numbers increasing so much, it’s become hard not to feel like anything but a number with Marriott. The merger by all accounts, didn’t go well from an IT perspective, which certainly didn’t endure goodwill from anyone. Further, all of the additional members have made competition for upgrades even more competitive.
As for the Ambassador program, it too has become a victim of Marriott’s success. Because the spend requirement didn’t kick in until 2019, I imagine that the number of Ambassador users was astronomical in 2019. Marriott never had such a program, but they certainly had thousands – if not tens of thousands – of members that routinely stayed 100 nights. Now that the revenue requirement has kicked in, I imagine that number has depleted some, but nowhere close to where things stood pre-merger.
What’s changed
It had not occurred to me until Leigh and I were at the JW Marriott Phu Quoc in December and she said, “what happened to all the goodies you used to get?” She was of course referring to the bottle of wine or champagne that was routinely left for us upon check-in. At the JW, we were given a drink voucher that was only good during happy hour.
I hadn’t put much thought into it, but she was right. I hadn’t received the same level of service from the hotels as I had in the past. I spent a week or two mulling it over, even asking other ambassador members their thoughts, before emailing my own ambassador to get hers.
Before I get into her response, let me start by saying I lucked out with my ambassador. She’s thorough, helpful, and comes from SPG, so she knows what the intention of the program really was/is. After my email, she called me, saying that I wasn’t the first person to mention that I thought the service of the ambassador program had been deprecated.
A few points from her:
- The old SPG mantra was under promise and over deliver. These days the Marriott mantra is over promise and under deliver
- Each ambassador is responsible for more members than the entire ambassador program under SPG (!!!), meaning she can’t possibly provide personalized service. My ambassador is responsible for more than 500 members alone.
- Ambassadors don’t get any sort of report of when or where their members are staying on a weekly or monthly basis. In practice, this means that if there’s a special stay coming up, you need to let your ambassador know about a week out, otherwise don’t expect much.
- They continue to have issues – mostly at legacy Marriott hotels – with enforcement of standards and recognition of Ambassador Elites. She alluded that each hotel has a budget to do things for ambassadors, but many still choose not to (again, legacy Marriott hotels). This is why I prefer legacy SPG hotels whenever possible (Westin, W, Luxury Collection, St Regis) to Marriott legacy (Marriott, Courtyard, Ritz).
- In order to provide better service in 2020, she plans on working extra hours because that’s what we deserve after spending $20k with her employer. I said that’s really not what the solution should be, but rather a better ambassador:member ratio. She alluded that they’re hiring more people, though many of the new hires are questionable in her opinion.
My Take
On the one hand, I’m sort of relieved to hear it’s not just my imagination that things have gone downhill on the Ambassador side. On the other, it really sucks that Marriott has deprecated such a unique program that did provide some value for its best customers. Marriott is continues to show that it’s going to just be the 800 pound gorilla rather than trying to earn customer loyalty.
Will this cause me to break up with Marriott? No, but I have already started diverting a good portion of my hotel stays to Hyatt, especially as they continue to grow their footprint. It’s impossible to talk about the Ambassador program without talking about Marriott Bonvoy overall, since they keep moving the goal posts. Examples include:
- Category changes – Just last week, Marriott announced its annual category changes that will go into effect March 4th, and nearly a third of all properties are changing (22% are increasing in award price, and only7% decreasing). This is a substantial increase in mid-tier properties and will negatively affect far more people that the Gritti Palace or St Regis Maldives increasing in price. This is on top of the introduction of Category 8 in March 2019, meaning the highest priced hotels went from 60k/night to 100k/night within 6 months, a 67% increase!
- Peak pricing – The bait and switch introduction of peak/off peak pricing in September 2019 was not what anyone (blogger, or otherwise) thought would be the case. Marriott sold it as being based on seasonality (i.e., ski resorts costing less in summer), but in fact, it’s dynamic pricing that’s based on occupancy. In practice, this means that the sooner you book, the better rate you get.
- No blackout dates – Marriott promised to adopt SPG’s policy of no blackout dates as long as a standard room was available. What came to pass was hotels being given the ability to designate a small fraction of rooms as a standard rooms, then play games with whether it was available or not. I’ve seen this myself at the Los Alcobas Napa Valley, and all you have to do is visit any Marriott forum to see a list of others not playing by the rules. Even months out, there will be seemingly no availability, even when standard rooms are available using cash.
Eventually, Marriott’s degradation of the program will catch up with it, I just don’t know that it’ll be anytime soon. Their footprint is massive and they really do have a huge portfolio of aspirational properties. As for the Ambassador Program, it’s a nice-to-have, but nothing worth going out of your way for, especially given the revenue requirement.
My strategy moving forward is to keep Marriott Platinum (50 nights) or Titanium (75 nights), which includes the 15 night credit from any number of Marriott Bonvoy cards (like the Bonvoy Brilliant card from American Express). I’ll then spend the rest of my time in Hyatt properties, because as a Globalist (60 nights), I find that I’m treated as well or better than many Marriott properties, without the hoops to jump through.
What are your thoughts on Marriott’s changes to the Ambassador program or the Bonvoy Program overall?
