It’s Here: Marriott’s New Rewards Program Just Got Officially Announced

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Marriott purchased SPG and merged them as well as the Ritz-Carlton Rewards into one program last year. I hope you already linked and combined your accounts. From late last year, you were already able to use one single account for all three reward programs. The merger with SPG is still a disaster, even month after the actual merger. There are still IT issues and glitches. So far, I wasn’t affected much by them and combining my account brought me lifetime Platinum (Premier) status.

Read More: The Marriott and SPG Merger

Supposedly if you hit the requirements you could be grandfathered into Platinum Premier Status. Their website reads that people who are eligible will be contacted in January. As I achieved Platinum Premier Status with Ambassador service, I contacted my ambassador to find out when the change will happen. According to her, this will not before February 2019. Also getting an ambassador assigned and getting contact information took a long time. This was also due to the merger issues they are still facing.

If you are a member of one of the reward programs, you probably received an email lately about the new name for the combined reward program. The rumors are now confirmed and the name is

Marriott Bonvoy

This will be the official name starting February 13, 2019. I hope this change will go smoother than the merger. As it seems, there won’t be many other changes, as the website points back to marriott.com. Two tier levels will get a new name, which is a great idea because right now they have three tier levels with the word “Platinum” in it. This is probably one of their best ideas of the new loyalty program.

  1. Marriott Platinum Premier Elite (75+ nights) will be renamed to Marriott Bonvoy Titanium Elite (yes, really)
  2. Marriott Platinum Premier Elite with Ambassador (100+ nights and $20,000+ spend) will be renamed to Marriott Bonvoy Ambassador Elite

All other levels stay the same as well as the benefits and qualification requirements for all tier levels.

Marriott Bonvoy Brands

But seriously? Bonvoy?

When rumors first spread about the new name, the internet didn’t liked the name either. What kind of name is “Bonvoy”? It’s probably derived from “bon voyage” which means literally “good voyage” in French. It’s great of Marriott to wish it’s customers a great journey but they could still have chosen a better name.

This kinda reminds me when Hyatt changed their loyalty program as well as the name of it from “Hyatt Gold Passport” to “World of Hyatt”. I really liked the old name better.

As Marriott is the owner of all three programs, why not keep it Marriott Rewards. Now they are going on a multi-million dollar campaign to promote the new name. This money could have been used in a better way. Anyway, it is official now, and we can’t do anything about it. I am just curious how their marketing department came up with all that.

Marriott also created new social media accounts for their new program besides their website to introduce the program. These social media accounts don’t have any content yet and are probably just registered so they can transfer the name in about 4 weeks to their current accounts.

Here are their new social media sites:

What do you guys think about the new name?

Marriott, Marriott Bonvoy, Marriott Rewards, SPG - Starwood Preferred Guest
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[…] were going around already weeks before the official launch. Then finally, just about a month ago, Marriott officially announced the new rewards program and… Read more »

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