One of the attractive aspects of the Marriott Premier Visa Credit Card is the awarding of bonus elite night credits for each $3000 of purchases made on the card (in addition to Marriott Rewards points for purchases and the benefits given at the time of the annual renewal of the card). While the MR points appear on the monthly statement of the credit card -- and the annual renewal bonus (15 nights) is stated quite clearly -- the transfer of bonus elite night credits appears to be unnecessarily shrouded in something approaching mystery. The monthly credit card statements contain no cumulative purchase amount (of the charges during the current calendar year) and, unlike the Marriott Reward points, the monthly statement contains no indication of bonus nights that have been earned.
I would like to pose the question to the community manager or to the representatives of Marriott that monitor "Marriott Rewards Insiders", can this situation be improved?
In a recent response to a question about bonus elite night credits for Marriott Credit Card spending that appeared in "Marriott Rewards Insiders", I recounted my own experience attempting to receive information about whether I would receive a bonus elite night for my recent purchases -- which would bring my elite nights this year from 49 to 50 nights. My attempts proved to me that the mystery surrounding the awarding of bonus elite nights is not only found among loyal Marriott Rewards members, it is also found among Marriott Reward customer service representatives and Marriott Visa Credit Card customer service representatives.
I will not repeat the full description of my attempts to obtain information about the awarding of bonus elite night credits, but in short, I was (incorrectly)told by 2 customer service representatives of the Marriott Visa Credit Cards that the awarding of elite nights was not determined by them but by Marriott Rewards -- and I was (correctly) told by the customer service representatives of Marriott Rewards that the bonus nights were awarded by the Marriott Visa Credit Cards and that Marriott Rewards had no idea what the cumulative spend was on the credit cards. After insisting to speak to a supervisor of the Marriott Visa Credit Cards -- and having him read his resource material together with me -- he admitted that the bonus nights were awarded by Marriott Visa and sent to Marriott Rewards. He had no idea why neither the cumulative spending on the cards nor the fact that bonus nights would be awarded did not appear on the monthly statements and could not be accessed anywhere else until they appeared on the Marriott Rewards Account Overview.
In my specific case, in early November I had been incorrectly told by a Marriott Visa customer service representative that she thought I had earned another bonus night (the one that would bring me to 50 nights), but the night never appeared and, despite what she told me, perhaps it had not been earned. If I would have been aware of this information, I would have added an additional charge to my Marriott Visa Credit Card that would have guaranteed the additional bonus night -- a win-win-win solution for me, for the Marriott Visa CC and, I think, for Marriott (which would like to keep satisfied loyal customers).
Lack of clarity in divining whether one will earn bonus elite nights is a subject of a number of postings in "Marriott Rewards Insiders". Creating clarity does not appear to be something that would be difficult to achieve -- and I am certain that it would be appreciated by many members of the Marriott Rewards community.
Thus my question to Marriott: Can the tracking of cumulative spending and the awarding of elite bonus nights by the Marriott Visa Credit Cards be improved and made more transparent?