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One of the most curious aspects of the new joint Marriott Rewards/SPG programme is that despite a lot of information being given out over the last year, until now there was no official launch date beyond ‘sometime in August’. With August now just days away, I’m relieved to say that there is now a confirmed launch date: the new programme will go live on Saturday 18th August 2018.
My understanding is that nothing should change until then (ie. you should be able to make redemptions under the current categories etc), so with 3 weeks still to go, you’ve got plenty of time to work out how to play things to your best advantage.
US blogs OneMileAtATime and ViewFromTheWing have lots more information if you fancy a longer read, but I just wanted to flag the news for you asap.
If you’re as obsessed with Marriott’s Travel Packages as everyone at InsideFlyer Towers has become, you’ll be interested to note that both Ben (OMAAT) and Gary (VFTW) say that Marriott’s Head of Loyalty, David Flueck, gave them no more details about Travel Packages when they had the opportunity to speak to him.
In fact, Ben goes so far as to say,
” I’m sticking to my current theory, which is that I think they plan on being generous, but don’t want to publicize that, because they don’t want everyone redeeming their points this way, given what a spectacular value it is. That’s the only logical conclusion I can come up with.“
This seems to contrast strongly with the info/vibes Rob over at HeadForPoints picked up from his own discussion with Mr Flueck, which I wrote about earlier. If Rob has somehow managed to get Flueck to spill the beans, massive hats off to him! On the other hand, I sincerely hope he’s misinterpreted something and there isn’t actually any bad news.
Either way – I’m sure I won’t be the only one eagerly reading HeadForPoints early tomorrow morning!
So should I be doing anything with my Starpoints and Marriott points just now?
Seems like there’s no rush – hopefully!
Aaaaaaand I don’t know what to do !!!!!!!
🙂
Marriott obviously needed to buy more time. I never thought they would launch the new program on 1 August.
My guess is that the marriott packages will be devalued, no doubt about that. Redeeming a higher level 7 day package at one of the high end Marriott hotels in say Paris and London were ridiculously good value and one of the best hacks out there. Glad I got a couple of packages and hotel bookings sorted earlier this year.
What I’m wondering is will you still be able to buy what were the SPG points on special? How is that going to work? Will Marriott just sell those points like SPG did? If they don’t that will have a big bearing on airline awards for Singapore airlines etc who don’t ever sell off their miles. Do you know what is happening there Joe?
Good question – unfortunately, I’ve not seen or heard anything about Points sales yet. Marriott Rewards never used to have them, BUT Marriott has been pushing the SPG sales really hard since the takeover, so presumably does see some value in it. On balance, I suspect we’ll probably see something similar, but probably not as good.