Marriott Rewards 2012 Hotel Category Drops by Location

Marriott Rewards posted its hotel category reassignments for 2012. While my primary complaint about reward nights hotel category transparency for consumers has been addressed with a complete list of hotels going up and down being posted, my other pet peeve is posting a list by hotel brand rather than geographic location.

Here is a geographic quiz to illustrate the issue with no city, state and country being used to organize the Marriott brand hotels for the reward category changes. The answers are at the end of this post.

1. What state has the Courtyard Tyler?

2. What state has the Teaneck Marriott at Glenpointe?

3. Where will you fly to stay at the Renaissance Jaragua Hotel & Casino?

4. Is Courtyard Panama City Metro Mall within a day’s drive of Atlanta?

5. Where will I find the Denia Marriott La Sella Golf Resort & Spa?

Here is a table of the Marriott properties going down in category organized by geographic location. There are five times as many hotels going up than down. The other list will take a little longer for me to organize.

There do not seem to be many patterns or trends to point out except that the Caribbean appears to be dropping. The most overpriced hotel region of the world five years ago seems to be suffering some travel reward drops. The four Aruba hotels are currently already listed at the lower reward category level. These hotels were the same ones that rose to category 8 in March 2011. That level did not last too long.

There are no other hotels in the top four categories dropping a level.

Japan and Egypt are probably a symptom of disaster and revolution that keeps many people from wanting to redeem points for travel in those countries over the past year.

Answers to Marriott Rewards geoquiz:

1. What state has the Courtyard Tyler?  Texas.

2. What state has the Teaneck Marriott at Glenpointe? New Jersey.

3. Where will you fly to stay at the Renaissance Jaragua Hotel & Casino? Dominican Republic.

4. Is Courtyard Panama City Metro Mall within a day’s drive of Atlanta? Panama City in Panama is longer than a day’s drive and you will might want a vehicle with a winch. That Darien Gap is a tough haul if you want to go past Panama on the Pan-American Highway. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dari%C3%A9n_Gap

5. Where will I find the Denia Marriott La Sella Golf Resort & Spa? Spain.