SPG Reimbursement Policy Changes
Marriott is committed to providing our owner & franchise partners with the best brands, systems and returns in the industry. We continue to offer valuable loyalty programs that drive costs down for our owners while maintaining the strongest possible customer experience. Repeatedly evaluating options to give our owners the most effective loyalty program has resulted in some notable returns, such as the program chargeout rate/assessment fee for this year being reduced by 0.1% for all fully-participating Marriott Rewards, The Ritz-Carlton Rewards and Starwood Preferred Guest brands*. This reduction led to a cost savings of approximately $27 million across the combined portfolio globally.
Since our last update on our journey toward a combined loyalty program, we continue to make progress on integrating Marriott Rewards and Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) into a single combined loyalty program that offers more brands and more destination choices to our loyal customers.
We recently announced changes regarding SPG Reimbursement Policies to provide greater structure and controls around elements of our loyalty programs. These changes are designed to further align our loyalty programs and will go into effect on July 31, 2017, globally. This policy update is part of SPG’s ongoing efforts to provide equitable compensation and maintain the fee structure to hotels participating in the SPG Program along with balancing the program’s liability. This update has been communicated to General Managers, Front Office Managers, and Reimbursement Specialists through the SPG Hotel Coordinators and SPG Property Champions.
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Summary of Changes for 2017, effective July 31, 2017 |
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Complimentary Rooms |
Complimentary rooms booked seven (7) days prior to arrival are excluded from occupancy and ADR calculations used for premium compensation calculations |
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Premium Compensation Maximum |
Maximum reimbursement per award night moving to 5X vs. current 6X the Full Year ADR used to set annual SPG award category |
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50% Available Inventory Maximum |
Implement a 50% of available inventory maximum for Free Night Award redemptions eligible for premium compensation – SPG will reimburse premium compensation (if eligible) to a maximum of 50% of the hotels overall inventory. Any Free Night Awards accepted that exceed the 50% cap will receive only base compensation and no premium compensation. This new policy does not change the requirement that all SPG hotels must still keep all its standard rooms attached to its base Free Night Award Rate Plan (SPG#) and that the base Free Night Award Rate Plan (SPG#) must still be last room availability. |
We look forward to sharing further 2018 budget guidance with you in the coming weeks. Thank you for your continued support as we drive loyalty at your hotels.
* Excludes Design Hotels. Marriott Executive Apartments and ExecuStay will receive a pro-rata reduction.
