Musings

Marriott's Decreased Earnings "Error" Reminds Me of a Fantastic Recent American Airlines Gaffe

Blackbeard

Feb 8, 2025 • 2 min read Comments

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Tl;dr - Earlier this week, the internet noticed that Marriott had published a page depicting decreased earnings for some of the hotel brands in its portfolio. While Marriott quickly cleared up the mistake, citing a 'simple' error, this reminds me of a recent quasi-NSFW mistake by American Airlines.

Earlier this week, the internet noticed that Marriott had published a page depicting decreased earning rates at more brands within its 36-brand portfolio of hotels. When it was brought to Marriott's attention, the company quickly fixed the error and stated they have no plans to decrease point earning rates. So while this ended up being a bunch of 'nothing,' there was some snowballing out there, as many points and miles enthusiasts thought they were, yet again, 'getting the short end of the stick from Marriott.'

This viewpoint isn't entirely unfair, as we recently learned that Marriott would be devaluing award rates at several popular properties in its portfolio. That said, there's a tendency in the points and miles community to rag on Marriott, and while I have my laundry list of improvements Marriott can make to Bonvoy, I've also credit the program for some of my most memorable redemptions to date.

I say all this to clarify my rationale for bringing this incident to this attention. It is not to take a shot at Marriott for this error, but it IS very much an opportunity to put American Airlines on blast, as this misstep reminds me of a fantastic 'IT' mistake American Airlines made just last year.

American Airlines Uses Open Source Map for its Award Map Search and Pays the Price

A few months ago, I came across this gem on Reddit. Evidently, for its newly launched AAdvantage Miles Finder Map, American Airlines used OpenStreetMap.org, an open-source provider of digital maps, to power its map functionality. The problem? It's way too easy for contributors to edit the project, resulting in funny, wild, inaccurate, inappropriate, and sometimes downright NSFW updates to popular locations.

As an example, London and Paris are depicted as anything but themselves on the map below:

Oh, my.

As one might expect, once made public, this gaffe was addressed quickly. American Airlines now uses a map devoid of names or markings, save for those that populate and correspond to the airport code you search.

Now, there are so many things one could say, but as a fan of the open-source tech community, I'm just perplexed that American Airlines didn't provide a bit more quality assurance here.