Marriott hotel category changes - limited but negative effect for India

As I pointed out earlier, both Starwood and Marriott made some hotel category changes yesterday/today. In my post earlier today, I wrote about Starwood's changes, which had mixed effects for India, with 8 hotels seeing category increases and 4 hotels being lowered. Marriott too has made changes, to a total of 797 of its hotels, with 560 of them increasing in category and 237 being lowered. All of this is with effect from 24 March 2016. Here's the low down and the India effect.

Here's the summary of changes:

As you can see, the most brutal hit has been delivered to hotels in the US, where there have been 524 category increases (and 152 category reductions). Just the US represents 85% of all changes, with the consequent effect that there are relatively very few changes in other countries.

Only two Indian hotels have been affected. Unfortunately, both have been adversely affected, due to category increases:

• The JW Marriott Mussoorie Hotel is now a category 5 hotel (up from Cat 4), meaning 25,000 points for an award night
• The Renaissance Mumbai Hotel & Convention Centre is now a category 3 hotel (up from Cat 2), which means 15,000 points for an award night.

While I've not been to the JW Marriott Mussoorie, I have stayed a couple of times at the Renaissance Mumbai Hotel & Convention Centre. I've written about one of these visits, and also about the executive lounge there, which is absolutely fabulous! This hotel was earlier available for only 10,000 points a night, which made it a steal!

Thankfully, nothing has changed in places like the JW Marriott Bangalore

Here's a reminder of what it takes for a room night at hotels in each of the categories:

As with SPG's case, I expect these changes to have an effect on my valuation of hotel loyalty program points in India. However, because there are only 2 hotels affected by these changes, the effect on valuations won't be as much as it could be with SPG.

The silver lining is that these changes take effect on 24 March 2016. That means that you have a little over a month to lock in your reward nights at the old rates, if there's availability. 

Conversely, if you're looking at an award night for a hotel that's undergone a category reduction, you could wait till after the changes take effect. However, if you find that risky, here's a proposition: book now at the old (higher) rates, and see if there's a availability once the new rates take effect. That way, if you are able to book at the new (lower) point requirements, you can do that and then cancel the previous reservation. Marriott's Points advance feature will allow you to book award nights before you have all the points in your account, as long as you’ll have the points by the time of the stay. Just make sure you have the necessary points in your account (from the cancellation of the first booking) no less than 14 days prior to the start of your stay.

In all, not a great way to end this week at least as hotel points are concerned.