Marriott Recognizes my Lifetime Titanium Status – A Year Late!

One of the good things about the Marriott-Starwood merger (yes, Ed, there was something good) was the dropping of the point requirement for Lifetime status and only going by nights like the Starwood program. Marriott’s program used to require 250, 500, or 750 nights and 800K, 1200K, or 1600K points respectively for the three status levels, Silver, Gold, and Platinum.

As someone who stayed at the Government per diem rate on most of my stays, I had over 800 nights at the time of the merger, but was still below the 1200K mark in lifetime points. Dropping the requirement for points at the end of last year, made me an instant lifetime member at the newly created Titanium level. Needless to say, I was very happy with this and Marriott has always made a point to recognize that status whenever I stayed there to date.

I was surprised to receive a large clear plastic envelope in the mail the other day from Marriott. I presumed it was some marketing deal.

My Lifetime Titanium Elite materials? Not sure what was inside, but they were easily 11 months late with this. Opening the envelope was a nice cardboard tri-fold.

Cool, what was inside?

Nice! a heavy metal card that calls me out as a top elite. However, how am I supposed to use this? They already know my status on the reservation. Why would I carry this around? Just to whip it out when I check in and say “DYKWIA, I’M A TITANIUM ELITE baby”! Yeah, probably not. A nice gesture, but I probably could have thought of a better way for them to recognize my status.,,and in a more timely manner.