Starwood & Marriott Make it Official

By now you've all read about the merger between Starwood Hotels and Marriott International.  Starwood's been for sale all year and it's been a pretty crazy time with plenty (IHG, Wyndham, Hyatt, etc...) of suitors mentioned in the news.  Interestingly enough, I never once read about Marriott being a potentially acquirer.

Everyone's speculating about what will happen to Starwood's brands, SPG program, and the current American Express credit card relationship.  While it's great to speculate, this is a $12B+ merger and it's going to take years to fully integrate both companies.  Marriott's been coy about their plans for all of the above and I expect it will take quite some time before we learn more.  The merger isn't expected to close for 6-9 months and if the airline integrations of the past few years are any indication, it's going to take awhile to even come up with a plan.

Marriott is a giant company with nearly 3x the hotels, 20 brands with many in the limited service category.  Starwood has the better loyalty program, credit card, and is focused on the higher end market.  So the merger makes a ton of sense in that both companies are complimentary to each other.

It's highly likely that the Marriott loyalty program survives and the Starwood American Express relationship (another blow for Amex) is shuttered given that Marriott is the acquirer and will essentially be the surviving entity.

If that happens, I'll be sad to see the program (wonder what will happen to my lifetime gold status?) and the longest tenured credit card in my wallet go.

But this is business and we knew it was coming all year.  I hope Marriott decides to keep Starwood as a brand but not sure that's the best long term business move.  At this point, all that we can do is speculate on what will happen and continue to earn/burn as normal.  I'm doing just that at the moment - wrapping up a phenomenal stay at Al Maha (more on this later) outside of Dubai.  What I wouldn't do is panic and blow all of your points.

Al Maha Dubai bedroom

I'm not going to change my loyalty or credit card approach in light of the merger.  Starwood will still be my primary program and the Starwood Amex remains in my wallet until further notice.