Marriott membership tiers: Front desk hanging > taking a dump > Ambassador > Titanium > Platinum, in that order. Nowadays, many 'prestigious' Platinum challenge members check into Marriott and their first question to the front desk is: suite or shit. The original intention of airline and hotel loyalty programs was to bind business travelers through a points system, decentralizing the kickbacks given to procurement and redirecting them to white-collar workers. But once hotel groups realized that issuing more elite statuses and selling points was a great way to pad financial reports, loyalty programs were destined from Day One to become nothing more than monopoly money. The most typical example is IHG. Looking at their financial reports, the entire group has basically reduced itself to financial engineering through management fees and the points system, while owning almost no hotels. Then there’s Marriott and Hilton, which have larger bases and are also quickly turning their points into funny money. Lastly, there’s my favorite, Hyatt, but even they couldn’t resist the rapid growth of loyalty programs and went through a round of devaluation this year. If there were a perp market to short the value of airline and hotel points, you could short it with your eyes closed. With membership numbers skyrocketing and hotel owners on limited budgets, they’re left serving a bunch of Fliggy Platinum challenge members pre-made slop in the executive lounge that people wouldn’t even eat if it were free. But for now, everyone’s still enjoying it and feeling like they’ve hit the jackpot. #LoyaltyPrograms #TravelHacks #HotelLife