Update on Marriott promo for social media interactions
A couple of months back, Marriott announced Marriott Rewards Plus, a promotion that offered Marriott Rewards points for social media interactions. You could earn points quite easily by:
You could earn a maximum of 2,000 points every 30 days till November 2014, making it a total of 12,000 points virtually free.
- joining the promotion
- sharing or retweeting Marriott's posts to your Facebook or Twitter feeds each day
- checking into properties on Facebook or Foursquare every day you visit
- posting a photo each day to Instagram and tagging it with a property’s location
- using #LoveMarriottRewards, #RenHotels or #Autograph in your daily Facebook, Twitter and Instagram posts
- liking and following select brands and properties in Facebook or Twitter
But a lot of that has changed, suddenly and quite drastically. The biggest changes (easiest earning ops) are:
According to Marriott, the promotion was original in Beta (which it was), and they've tweaked the program to make what they've stopped short of calling "improvements". So what you can potentially earn now is a meagre 25 points for each of the following actions:
- no more 250 points for "liking" a Marriott property's Facebook page or following it on Twitter,
- sharing or re-tweeting content (FB) no longer earns points
- social check-ins and geo-tagged posts (FB, Instagram and FourSquare) no longer earns points
- #hashtag posts and notes (FB, Instagram, Twitter) no longer earns points
- using FourSquare no longer earns points.
According to Marriott, the promotion was original in Beta (which it was), and they've tweaked the program to make what they've stopped short of calling "improvements". So what you can potentially earn now is a meagre 25 points for each of the following actions:
- following a Marriott property on Twitter (previously 250 points)
- following a Marriott brand on Instagram (new)
- retweeing content on Twitter (use of #MRpoints mandatory)
- social check ins on Facebook (max 2,000 points every 30 days)
- using #hashtags (#LoveMarriottRewards, #RenHotels, #AutographHotels) on Twitter and Instagram (use of #MRpoints mandatory)
Or in pictures...
In effect, this represents a 90% reduction of earning opportunities for the most easy ones - FB and Twitter actions that were previously allowed. Restricting it to 4 actions per 24 hours makes it even more difficult. That means a cap of 100 points a day, and you need 20 days' worth of actions (or 80, total in 30 days), to earn 2,000 points. Also since the promo expires in November 2014, you can hope to earn only a max of 8,000 points (or 320 actions).
Thankfully, they have increased the number of participating properties. And it isn't too difficult to continue earning the 2,000 points every 30 days, if you keep to a schedule, and all you're looking for is the points. After all, you only need 320 actions, and there are a total of 363 participating properties.
From an Indian standpoint, Marriott possibly has the best loyalty program when compared with Hilton, IHG and SPG, which is why I don't mind spending a few extra minutes for the 12k free points on offer here!
To earn Marriott Rewards points, my suggestions are:
a. Go the tweeting way, including #MRPoints and #LoveMarriottRewards, #RenHotels or #AutographHotels - 4 times each day will do it.
b. Follow different properties each day. Since there's more participating properties than days needed, this should be easily do-able. Pro tip: Not all properties have a Twitter page to follow!
c. A mix (b) and (a).
Stop at day 20, and give yourself a 10-day break before you rinse and repeat again!
From an Indian standpoint, Marriott possibly has the best loyalty program when compared with Hilton, IHG and SPG, which is why I don't mind spending a few extra minutes for the 12k free points on offer here!
To earn Marriott Rewards points, my suggestions are:
a. Go the tweeting way, including #MRPoints and #LoveMarriottRewards, #RenHotels or #AutographHotels - 4 times each day will do it.
b. Follow different properties each day. Since there's more participating properties than days needed, this should be easily do-able. Pro tip: Not all properties have a Twitter page to follow!
c. A mix (b) and (a).
Stop at day 20, and give yourself a 10-day break before you rinse and repeat again!
Here's the link to the promo page.
Not following your math: Each "action" is worth 25 points and you can only earn 2000 per month, so that's only 80 actions necessary per month. Assume 30 days per month and that's 2.66 actions per day. You say "4 each day will do it", which is true, but 3 each day is still more than you need. Frankly, it works out to 1 action every 9 hours. Confirm or explain?
ReplyDeleteHi Ed... you're correct that 3 actions are sufficient. However the program itself allows 4 per day. To meet that, 4 tweets with the relevant hash tag will suffice, and one doesn't need to follow hotels on twitter in addition to that. Which is what I meant. Helps?
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