Marriott’s 34-Year Soda Deal and a $25 Parking Scam - Episode 221

Hello and welcome to episode 221 of Travel Stories from the Back Again and Gone Podcast. Being recorded in the beautiful home office of Chateau’ Relaxo, FL. If you’re a new listener, welcome; and if you’re a returning listener, welcome back.No beer this episode, as I am recording this early on Saturday morning, and I am not that much of a monster.I believe I was on a plane almost every single week during the last five or six weeks, and in reference to the last episode, possibly my luck with hotels, or at least the ones that I am staying at, has taken a turn for the better.The first trip was to Raleigh, North Carolina, for a few days, which, of course, means my go-to Hilton Garden Inn, right outside the Raleigh-Durham airport, was my lodging of choice. I’ve been at this location for many years, and it is perfectly located for all of my work interactions. There is a Sheetz gas station a quarter mile away, and Sheetz is probably, in my opinion, the only runner-up to Quiktrip; and if you need something more than what Sheetz has to offer, the RDU Galleria is right across the parking lot, which houses a food court with a solid selection of six different restaurants as well as a bar.What I like about this Hilton Garden Inn is consistency. It seems that the desk clerk has been there for at least five years, as well as the bartender who makes a mean old-fashioned, and as I always say, I believe Hilton Garden Inn has some of the best chicken wings around. The best part is it is five minutes from the rental car return, which means not having to get up super early for a suicide flight.Another trip was a quick overnight trip to Atlanta, nothing unusual because the evening traffic starts right around 1 PM and it continues well after 7 PM.The first night of my stay, I ended up staying at a Hilton property on the west side of town, and when checking in, I was offered the complimentary choice of a beverage, and I mentioned to the desk clerk, with Atlanta being the home of Coca-Cola, let me go with a sugary Coke. And that’s when the desk clerk said he had previously worked for Marriott and that Marriott properties only serve Pepsi-Cola due to the fact that years ago, Marriott needed some working capital, 10 million dollars, and Pepsi was the only one that would give them the money, and in return Marriott would only serve Pepsi products in perpetuity.I’m one that loves a good story, but I also have a really good BS detector. I knew there had to be some truth to this, but I couldn’t believe that a business that wasn’t owned by PepsiCo would lock itself into a lifelong deal for only a few million dollars. So that night I did a deep dive into the inner webs and found, yes, there was some truth to the story, but it is not all that it seems.Here’s what I found: Marriott International famously served only Pepsi products for over 30 years due to a financial rescue deal, but the hotel chain is currently transitioning to Coca-Cola products worldwide. The History Behind the Pepsi Deal is that in 1991, Marriott faced extreme financial trouble and needed money to stay afloat. The company asked its longtime beverage supplier, Coca-Cola, for a loan between $50 million and $100 million at a low interest rate. Coca-Cola declined, stating they were not in the business of giving loans. Next, Marriott approached PepsiCo. PepsiCo agreed to provide a multi-million dollar loan to support the hotel chain. In exchange for the financial lifeline, Marriott signed an exclusivity contract. They dropped Coca-Cola entirely and made Pepsi their official beverage provider in 1992. For over three decades, every Marriott lobby bar, mini-market, and fountain machine featured Pepsi products. The big switch to Coca-Cola was as of April 2026; Marriott International ended its historic 34-year partnership with Pepsi.The hotel giant signed a massive new global agreement with the Coca-Cola Company. Marriott decided to switch back to Coke for a few key reasons: Guest Preference: Marriott shared that more than 70% of its guests prefer the Coca-Cola portfolio over Pepsi.The new deal brings Coke products to more than 9,700 properties across 143 countries. Marriott chose the swap to elevate the guest experience and offer the brands travelers request most. Because the transition is rolling out across thousands of hotels, you may still find leftover Pepsi items at a few locations. Still, Coca-Cola is rapidly becoming the new default standard.Pepsi saved Marriott from bankruptcy, and Marriott honored that for 34 years. But in the end, customer preference won. Remember loyalty rules business… until the data says otherwise.Next time you’re at a Marriott and grab a soda, check the can. If it’s Coke? That’s new. If it’s Pepsi? You’re in the last few hotels still on the old deal.The last night of my Atlanta trip, I stayed at the DoubleTree Atlanta Airport, a property that I’ve frequently stayed at over the past 17 years. However, there was one change since my last stay. They now charge for parking: $25.00 for overnight parking. This is a total money grab. The parking lot looked exactly as it did during my last visit, no new asphalt and no new stripping. If an airport hotel wants to charge for parking, bake it into the room charge. Most everyone lodging at an airport hotel is a business traveler, and a parking charge means an additional entry in an expense report; yes, it’s the little things. But they did give me a cookie at check-in, and their Philly cheesesteak is nothing to pass on.Believe it or not, on my flight home, the Atlanta airport TSA pre-check took less than five minutes to get through, which I have not had happen in years, so I’m sure I will pay for that at some point.I noticed the airport was having a hard press on the Delta-branded American Express cards. Because of what I was traveling with, I had to check my bag, and as I was handing it over to the ticket agent, she said, “I noticed that you have this color of the American Express card.” She said, “If you update to this color, here are the additional benefits you get,” and she went through the benefits, some of which were enticing. Some really wouldn’t apply to me, and others I already had. So, to close the deal, she flipped over her ID badge and asked me to scan the QR code with my phone, which took me to deltaoffer.com, where I could view the various levels of American Express cards and compare their benefits. Seriously, this ticket agent spent a good three or four minutes hyping me on this, so I’m sure she was getting comped on anyone who applied and was issued a card based on her QR code.I headed off to Concourse E, which by far hands-down has the best food choices in all of the Atlanta airport, and at the top of the escalator there was yet another American Express Delta booth hawking credit cards. After lunch. I headed back to Concourse T, got off the plane train, went up the escalator, and again was presented with yet another kiosk hawking Delta-branded American Express cards. It was then that my gate was changed from Concourse T to Concourse A, and I repeated the whole process: down the escalator, walk a bit, and then up another escalator, and what do I find, but another Delta American Express-branded credit card kiosk looking for applicants.I got to my gate and opened up the webpage that the ticketing agent’s QR code directed me to and started reading about the benefits of upgrading our current card. And actually, we have two American Express cards, which I would love to condense down to one single card. After reading and considering, I decided that it would absolutely make sense to upgrade the card, as the benefits of a new level far outweighed the benefits of the current two cards that we are using. But here is the fly in the ointment: when I started thinking about it, we probably have easily 10 different monthly auto-deducts against both of those cards, and the thought of untangling that web and, in turn, retangling it with a new card made upgrading the cards a little less appealing. What American Express needs to do is find some way to migrate your existing auto deducts from your existing card to your new card.Another trip was to a new town and airport: Louisville, Kentucky. Base camp was the airport Marriott Courtyard, which still offered Pepsi products but the big standout in this hotel was their fitness center. It was equipped with a Rogue monster power rack with lat-pulldown and cable system. There were two Rogue benches, a full set of Rogue dumbbells, and a Concept C2 rower in addition to a full set of cardio equipment. It was like my own mini CrossFit box. I asked the front desk if this location double-dipped as a CrossFit affiliate, and they said no; they get asked that all the time, but that’s just what the owner decided to put in the center, and it would definitely be a reason that I would stay at that hotel again.With the hotel being located right outside the airport, I figured there would be plenty of places for dinner. I asked the front desk, and, believe it or not, all they had were an abundance of Mexican restaurants. Ended up at a place called Little Daniels and dined on a monster steak burrito, which replaced all the calories I lost at the fitness center.The last trip was another new destination and airport, and it took place right after the Fourth of July; it was Myrtle Beach. In all my years of travel, I have spent time in Brunswick and Savannah, GA; Charleston; and Wilmington, NC, plus the Outer and Inner Banks, but never in Myrtle Beach. I was looking forward to checking out the town.My hotel of choice was the Hampton Inn Myrtle Beach - Northwood, which was about 10 minutes from the airport on Highway Business 17, which I renamed “The Strip” by the third traffic light. I grew up in Fort Lauderdale during the 1980s, during the height of Spring Break, when businesses made enough money catering to college kids during those 6 weeks to keep their doors open the rest of the year. Business 17 reminded me of that exact environment, but with a few additions. The first addition was the Pigeon Forge Gatlinburg influence in the form of multiple pancake restaurants. If you need a point of reference for Pigeon Forge Gatlinburg pancakes, listen to episode 134, where the CEO and I recount our road trip up through Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg.The best pancake store has to be the NHOP, not the IHOP; the NHOP is better known as the National House of Pancakes. There were plenty of Eagles Beachwear locations where you could load up on touristy t-shirts, keychains, and beach towels along Business 17. There was also Sugar Life, where you could fill your candy cravings from any of its five locations on Business 17.The hotel was a typical beach-town hotel with a persistent water trail from the indoor pool to the elevators, which was left by a constant flow of kids. I did see one of those shipping containers used for remodeling in the parking lot. Still, there was no evidence of actual work taking place, so, referring back to episode 220, hotel remodeling might just be making a comeback.Thankfully, I don’t suffer from OCD, but if I did, there’s a good chance that the toiletries bottle installation in the shower would’ve put me over the edge. Not only was the spacing off, but the bottles weren’t even close to being level. Apparently, the installer forgot his level and tape measure that day.I had an early morning flight out, and wasn’t in the mood for a hotel breakfast, and since I was in the Carolinas, I decided a Bojangles breakfast was in order. It was roughly an 8-mile drive to the airport, and Myrtle Beach, being a quote-unquote tourist town, I figured there’d be a Bojangles along the way, but alas, I was wrong; in fact, there were very few fast-food restaurants. There was one McDonald’s, one Hardee’s, a handful of Starbucks, and not a single Chick-fil-A. I finally found a Chick-fil-A inside the Myrtle Beach airport. Once at the airport, I opened Google Maps and checked Business 17; there are very few fast-food chains, and almost every eatery seemed to be a sit-down restaurant.During my 48-hour stay, I didn’t have enough time to give a detailed review, but with the beach, 75 golf courses, and 20+ putt-putt golf courses, I don’t understand their motto, “You belong at the beach.” It should be “Make sure you bring your clubs.”One quick note about Myrtle Beach International Airport—don’t forget to bring your jewelry… and apparently your sense of trust issues. Because they’ve got this thing called an OpticWash, which is basically a vending machine that says, “Hey, wanna toss your valuables into a tiny washing machine and just… believe in the process?”I’m not kidding—it cleans your glasses, your jewelry, even your phone. For five bucks, you can watch your life flash before your eyes as your AirPods spin around in what looks like a hamster’s hot tub.On to a bit of travel news.There’s a school of thought out there that says if you’ve never missed a flight, you may be spending too much time sitting around airports. That sounds outrageous at first, but the argument is pretty simple: every extra hour you spend waiting at the gate is an hour you’re not spending doing anything more enjoyable, literally.Of course, the real trick is knowing when to cut it close and when to build in a buffer. For a routine trip, maybe you don’t need to treat the airport like a hostage situation. But if the flight is for a wedding, a funeral, a big meeting, or anything where missing it would be a disaster, that’s when you absolutely want the cushion.So the message isn’t “show up late and live dangerously.” It’s more like: don’t automatically arrive so early that you’ve turned the terminal into your unpaid waiting room. The smart traveler knows when a little risk saves time — and when a little patience saves the whole trip.Not sure I remember where I came across that philosophy, but here are my thoughts on spending time at the airport. I have spent 26 years traveling for business, and I have never missed a flight. That being said, during my first few years of traveling, I was paired with a coworker who prided himself on being the last person to board a flight. It was almost like a badge of honor for him, and after 6 months of this, I began grabbing a taxi to the airport for those early morning flights, and to this day I don’t think he’s missed a flight, but he is on anti-anxiety meds.A Delta flight apparently went from routine beverage service to full-on federal drama after a passenger was accused of assaulting a flight attendant because he felt slighted by being skipped for a drink. What should have been a quick “no problem, I’ll catch you on the next round” turned into the aviation equivalent of a toddler not getting the blue cup and deciding nobody else should be happy either.Instead of calmly waiting his turn, the guy allegedly escalated things so badly that the flight had to divert, which is always a great sign that your in-flight complaint process has officially entered “this is now a police matter” territory. It’s amazing how some people can turn a missed soda into a whole unscheduled stopover.So the moral of the story is simple: if the beverage cart passes you by, you do not get to respond like you’re the star of a bad reality show. In airline terms, there are very few ways to make a flight memorable, and “forcing an emergency diversion over a drink service” is definitely one of the worst.Sticking with the whole beverage snack service theme and throwing in a bit of “Thank You Florida,” we have “Flight Attendant Calls Cops On Passenger Accused of Pilfering Airline Snack Cart During Flight to Florida” from Paddle Your Own Kanoo, and that’s Kanoo with a “K”.“Air travel is the only place where stealing a snack can turn into a police escort. At my house, if someone takes chips without asking, that’s called ‘a Tuesday.’ On a Breeze flight, it’s apparently ‘Operation Snackdown.’”“Imagine the flight attendant walking down the aisle: ‘Sir, you can’t just help yourself to the snack cart.’ That’s not a warning — that’s the beginning of a very expensive lesson in airport dignity. And once the cops got involved, now you’re not a passenger anymore; you’re a man being arrested for grabbing a bag of trail mix.“The best part is he reportedly offered to pay for it after all that. Which means this whole thing could’ve been solved with the most unglamorous sentence in aviation history: ‘My bad, how much for the trail mix?’ Instead, he chose the deluxe package: handcuffs, a trespass warning and a police escort— the airline version of ‘you are no longer welcome at Snack World.’”Let’s stick with the food-related content. United Airlines Passenger Shames Flight Attendant For Eating During Boarding, Says The “Warthog” Should “Go On Ozempic.”“Nothing says ‘customer service’ like a passenger seeing a flight attendant eat during boarding and deciding to become a full-time body inspector. Boarding is the one time the crew gets to take a breath, grab a bite, and pretend the cabin isn’t a rolling stress experiment. So instead of minding his business, this guy went straight to, ‘I’d like to shame the person keeping this operation from falling apart.’”“Calling her a ‘warthog’ and telling her to go on Ozempic is not a clever roast — that’s just mean, and the irony is incredible: you’re on a plane, surrounded by people who are literally paid to make sure you land safely, and you choose to spend your energy insulting the one person eating a snack like a normal human being.”“If you’re upset that a flight attendant is eating, I’ve got great news: there is a very easy fix. Look away. That’s the entire solution. You do not need to announce your insecurities to 180 strangers at 35,000 feet.”Some people board a plane looking for legroom. This guy boarded looking for a mirror and a mic.”Well, there you have it, Episode 221, June and part of July’s travel review.For long-time listeners, thank you for your comments and emails. For new listeners, I hope you return.If you want detailed show notes, links, and pictures, head over to Substack at travelstories.substack.com/You can also leave me a message on Anchor or email me at [email protected] I always say, travel safe, stay safe, and thanks for listening. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit travelstories.substack.com