Marriott Rewards UK Credit Card

The Marriott Rewards UK credit card closed to new applicants last summer (around July 2015) long before the proposed Marriott / Starwood merger was first announced in November 2015. It appears to have been closed suddenly. Marriott Rewards customer services were not made aware initially, and even now there are many obsolete links to the UK credit card on the Marriott website.

After questions from members, a Marriott Rewards representative posted on another forum (on 12 October 2015) that having spoken to their Partner Relations team, the situation was that “though they’ve had one in the past, it looks like they’ve run into some problems recently and have shut it down. I can’t say for sure whether they’ll be releasing it again or not.”

I’ve seen some forum posts suggesting there had been some serious issues around quality of service. It could be that Marriott were concerned about their brand being damaged and lost confidence in their UK credit card partner. The card was issued by Creation and although they are not a well-known financial services brand, they are part of global banking group BNP Paribas.

A final consideration is the financial viability of the card (which did not charge a fee) given the introduction of the EU cap on interchange fees for the credit card schemes. This has led many credit card issuers to remove or reduce the rewards on their cards. I suspect that if Marriott Rewards introduces a new UK credit card, it will have a fee and different benefits.