Hi, I’m BrightlyBob and a Marriott Insiders Refugee

Quoting Sledchick

Good morning from the East coast! This is Sledchick. Thank you so much for finding a place for the "Insiders Refugees". I still can't bring myself to type "Bonvoy". It seems to now mean "Bon Voyage with a middle finger sticking up" after yesterday's announcement.

Good to see you made it over Sled, and on FB too! I have to admit Marriott is making lot of miss-steps what with the membership relegations, silence on 2020 COVID requalification and managing to be the last major mover on allowing changes during the current crisis, but I think the Insiders closure is motivated by numbers, as they look at the other Platinum and Titanium Facebook groups and see a means of engagement that can reach way beyond anything the Insiders website has done. Of course, like everything Facebook-related it’s more superficial, but I reckon Marriotts only bothered about the “more” bit of the equation!

Quoting Sledchick

Good morning from the East coast! This is Sledchick. Thank you so much for finding a place for the "Insiders Refugees". I still can't bring myself to type "Bonvoy". It seems to now mean "Bon Voyage with a middle finger sticking up" after yesterday's announcement.

LOL! well put.

Quoting BrightlyBob

including of course hotels.com that allows booking of smaller independents with a 10% credit for later stays

Of course a big global promotion by a hotel group could get us quite animated!

As Sander said, the policy is zero tolerance, which makes it nice and clear, particularly when it's being enforced by a team of volunteers so avoiding ambiguity is useful.

So the above is likely to get flagged as promotional. The spammers we get are quite elaborate and wily so we are used to seeing spam embedded in a longer post. We also see promotions posted without links, as they either try to add them later or in a reply posted by another account, or they're just posting to raise their keywords on Google.

Quoting Sander

Once we've gotten to know you, and trust that your purpose for being on the site isn't to promote any specific organization, you'll have a lot more leeway in posting.

Hi @Sander! *tries to tag anyway* We are all here as Marriott Reward Insiders is no more. It was a Marriott specific forum so we tended to "promote" it by posting hotel reviews, lounge reviews, ranting at new policies, discussing the best way to get points, stays, earn status, work promotions...anything Marriott related. We also posted general travel things, tips, and advice. However, at the base was our love or sometimes....dislike! of Marriott.

It was Marriott that brought this group together. We are not in anyway directly affiliated with Marriott however.

This site looks like it could be a lot more! Which is great. The Travel Map looks AMAZING! <3

Thank you for posting the Guide! I will dig into that.

It looks like there is a Group feature here. Should we create an "Insiders" group which can all belong to?

BTW - I'm also looking/creating maps. This seems pretty neat.

Quoting nmb

It looks like there is a Group feature here. Should we create an "Insiders" group which can all belong to?

BTW - I'm also looking/creating maps. This seems pretty neat.

Sounds like a good idea to me.

Yeah...another refugee from the sad shutting down of Marriott Insiders, really showed your butt with the timing of that Marriott!

Anyway, so glad to see BrightlyBob, wmr78, msannmc, seatxn already here, if I missed anyone sorry. Also nice to see another person Sarah who we should all get to know as well.

Once I figure this out "A View From The Tower" may very well resurface.

SEA in Sept....TIPPLE Time!!!

aha, i've made it.

@SeaTexan - I too will miss the tagging feature. One thing I really enjoyed. haha.

Thanks to those of you who found this haven for us.

Quoting SeaTexan

Quoting Sledchick

Good morning from the East coast! This is Sledchick. Thank you so much for finding a place for the "Insiders Refugees". I still can't bring myself to type "Bonvoy". It seems to now mean "Bon Voyage with a middle finger sticking up" after yesterday's announcement.

LOL! well put.

Splendid as I'd love to give them a few of those fingers right in the eye.

Welcome Jsucool and IAHflyr. Certainly the blogs here are a good facility although they don’t end up on the forums board, that could be an adaptation worth requesting as I know several of us enjoy blogging, but with no notice that the blogs been filed, participation in the blog will be low. For you non-FB types the likes of me and Sledchick can update anything relevant that goes on there, such as the creation of a TripleTIPPLE group - if Marriott shows an interest in it then there may yet be a reception. Naturally I’ll keep you all up to date here...