Mastering Marriott’s Madness | Frequent Miler on the Air Ep247 | 3-22-24
Frequent Miler on the Air
Frequent Miler
4.9 • 640 Ratings
🗓️ 23 March 2024
⏱️ 83 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In some ways Marriott can be the Frankenstein’s monster of rewards programs. There's lots of good stuff about the program...and lots of bad stuff too, all sloppily sewn together.
(01:36) - More advice about how to pronounce "Qatar"! (Mailbag)
Read our post on how to pronounce "Qatar": https://frequentmiler.com/how-to-pronounce-qatar/
(08:46) - Ritz Carlton Card (Card Talk)
Read more about the Ritz Carlton card here: https://frequentmiler.com/yes-the-ritz-card-is-now-the-best-value-marriott-card/
(21:41) - Alaska wants you to pay to see ads (Crazy Thing)
(25:00) - Buy Choice points with 50% bonus (0.69c per point) (Mattress Running the Numbers)
Read more about the Choice points discount here: https://frequentmiler.com/buy-choice-points-with-30-discount-0-69cpp/
(33:20) - United to offer family mileage pooling (Award Talk)
(37:45) - Chilean airline JetSmart to adopt American’s AAdvantage loyalty program later this year (Award Talk)
(40:47) - Finnair points are now Avios (but there doesn’t yet appear to be a way to move them to BA, Iberia, etc.) (Award Talk)
(43:59) - JetBlue is cancelling routes (Award Talk)
(46:56) - Wells Fargo autograph journey now live 1 to 2 choice (Award Talk)
Main Event: Mastering Marriott’s Madness
(48:39) - Huge number of hotels worldwide (nearly 9,000)
This post can help you find out if you're eligible for the various Marriott cards: https://frequentmiler.com/marriott-card-eligible/
(52:36) - Bonvoy Basics Read our complete guide to Marriott Bonvoy here: https://frequentmiler.com/marriott-bonvoy-complete-guide/
(1:04:25) - Earning points See the best credit card offers here: https://frequentmiler.com/best-credit-card-sign-up-offers/
(01:09:42) - Earning free night certificates
(01:10:30) - Earning elite status Listen to our Easy Marriott elite status episode here: https://frequentmiler.com/easy-marriott-elite-status/
Read: Shortcuts to Marriott Elite status https://frequentmiler.com/shortcuts-to-marriott-platinum-elite-status/
(01:14:57) - Questions about paying for rent with the Alaska card via Bilt... with high rent of $3600/mo, which card should I use...Alaska with the fee or Bilt without the fee? (Question of the Week)
to get updated on in-depth points and miles content like this, and don't forget to like and follow us on social media. Music Credit - "Ocean Deep" by Annie Yoder
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is a Voyescape podcast. |
| 0:04.0 | You can find all of our travel podcasts from around the world at voyescape.com. |
| 0:10.8 | Let's get into the giant mailbag. |
| 0:13.6 | What crazy thing did? |
| 0:15.9 | City this week. |
| 0:17.5 | It's time for mattress running the numbers. |
| 0:19.9 | Ready for the main event? The main event. |
| 0:21.6 | Frequent Liler on the air starts now. |
| 0:24.6 | Today's main event, mastering Marriott's madness. |
| 0:30.6 | Marriott Bonvoy. |
| 0:32.6 | It's kind of the Frankenstein monster of rewards programs. |
| 0:35.6 | There's lots of good stuff. There's lots of bad stuff. And it's all |
| 0:39.3 | like sewn together sloppily. It's alive. It's alive. It's one of those programs that if |
| 0:48.3 | even if you hate it, you kind of need to deal with it. They have hotels literally all over the |
| 0:53.6 | world. And sometimes |
| 0:56.2 | you're going to be in places where Marriott is the right place for you to stay. And so knowing about |
| 1:01.6 | the program is a good thing. We're going to get into all the basics and some tips and tricks |
| 1:06.2 | around how to get the most out of the program. And it truly is madness, right? There's some craziness because it's such a big program. There's some craziness that makes it challenging. I think even for people like us that write about these things all the time, I still have to go back and reference some of our resources. We'll talk more about that later on today. You'll find out why you're going to have to reference those too. too. But before we get into all that, remember, we have the timestamps in the show notes. So if you want to jump around, jump ahead to a segment, return to something later on, you can always find the timestamps in the show notes. And wherever you're watching this show or listening to it, don't forget to like it, give us a thumbs up, leave some feedback, leave a comment. We appreciate all of those things. Right now, though, |
| 1:44.6 | let's drag out this week's Giant Mailbag. Today's Giant Mail comes from Mitsu, and I'm almost |
| 1:52.1 | certainly mispronouncing that name, and that's ironic given the contents of Mitsu's mail. |
| 2:02.2 | So Mitsu says, |
| 2:03.1 | Love Your Podcast, |
... |
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