Speculation that a bidder from China would purchase Starwood Hotels and Resort – also known as the parent company for hotel brands like W Hotels, Sheraton Hotels, Westin Hotels, and many others – has proven to be false. Marriott International won the bidding war and will pay USD 12.2 billion to acquire the hotel company, creating a mammoth hospitality company with “1.1 million rooms across 5,500 hotels and resorts in more than 100 countries,” the Starwood Preferred Guest program announced in an email to members.
Some Starwood Preferred Guest members are none too happy about the buyout. “Starwood’s frequent guests are used to upgrades to oversized suites. They are guaranteed late checkouts. And forget calling a random 1-800 number. Those who spend 100 nights a year with the chain have personal ‘ambassadors’ who are supposed to make ‘each trip special,'” the Associated Press reported Tuesday. Around Beijing, this affects two Westin Hotels, three Sheraton Hotels, a W Hotel, two Four Points hotels, The St. Regis Beijing, and Aloft Beijing in Haidian.
Regardless, there are and will be plenty of non-Marriott choices in Beijing even after the merger. A quick look at Agoda brings up 1,470 hotel choices for our fair city.
Here’s a way to not win the hearts and minds of a whole bunch of customers: continuously present them with a booking page for a region and in a language that they don’t like. Probably once out of every three times I visit the United Airlines site from a non-VPN connection in Beijing, it presents me with a page for Japanese-reading customers in Japan. Not so clever, folks.
Anyway, a quick look at their site and an input of December 19 departure and January 2 return from Beijing to Newark/New York produced a fare of RMB 5,723, including tax. Not bad for a Christmas fare that’s just over a month away.
One road flat safe.
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Photo: Skift, United Airlines/the Beijinger
