My company recently had a national sales meeting in Orlando. Our in-house "meeting planning" department put the whole thing together. The event took place at a Marriott-branded property.

The rooms were all billed to a master bill (about $180M). I put my Marriott number in thinking that I might get my room's points (and incidentals) but not really expecting to. Please note that I never tried to get the whole wad of points.

When my points didn't post, I called our meeting planner to bust her chops a little bit. I expected to be told that she had negotiated a better rate by foregoing points or something.

Long story short, I learned that she took all the points for the entire group!!! She said that it was a "perk of her position." These points will not be used to benefit my company. All this on top of her $40M "commission" for the rooms and other fees that she charged.

I call bullsh!t on that. Can any meeting planners, travel agents, or general citizens tell me that this is in fact an appropriate thing to do? Or am I correct to be outraged? I don't care about the points for my own account, but if they are going to someone they need to go to benefit the company (at least the budget center who paid the bill in the first place).

Mike

(edited because plato90s found this post confusing)

[This message has been edited by Mikey likes it (edited 03-06-2002).]

If I were in your position I'd be pi**ed. If I were in hers I'd feel that there was nothing wrong w/ this. From the hotel's perspective, it gets more bang for the buck if it can influence meeting planners ... tls

it's very common for meeting planners on this level to get the points or miles accrued for a big meeting like this. This is part of the resaon why indviduals don't get points on a stay when it is billed to a master account....because SOMEONE is often getting the points there.

I assume your company knows she is getting the points and has no problem with it, and in fact has made that one of the perks for the headaches she goes through. If your company is OK with it there's probably not much you can (or should) do.

If the company isn;t aware of the points value they are missing I suppose you could call it to their attention. But to me it's HER compensation and isn't necessarily your concern - unless you paid for your own room.

What does she need the points for if she brought in $40,000,000 in commission?

If I was bringing in that kind of money for just one event, I wouldn't be staying at Marriotts when I traveled.

d

Two or three points:

a) this is a company employee. She gets a fairly handsome salary. Any additional "compensation" she gets should be on her own time

b) the guy who paid the freight on these rooms DID NOT know that this meeting planner took the points. When I gave him an FYI, he quickly recited two or three ways he would rather use the points (to save $ on hotel rooms for out-of-town guests)

c) I am not just meddling. I am keenly concerned about cost and what appears to be someone feathering her nest at company expense. Remember that $180M in expenditures is 1.8MM points. These points could "buy" (at an average of 20M points per night) 90 hotel nights. Here in Chicago that's a reasonable value of what, $125/night or $11 thousand bucks.

As far as I am concerned, absent full disclosure and agreement by the person responsible for paying the bill, this is the same thing as stealing office supplies or of charging personal trips to the company account.

Mike


[This message has been edited by Mikey likes it (edited 03-05-2002).]

Just to clarify.

When the term "M" is thrown around, I assume we're talking "thousand", not "million". Right?

Yes. M=thousand. MM=million.

Mikey,

Were you expecting the points personally? Your initial post indicated that...

If the company you work for is OK with that, then you should get these points... and not the meeting planner.

In fact, you should call the hotel and indicate that these points were "stolen" from you. If your company did not know the meeting planner was getting the points, then he/she had no right to "STEAL" these points from you and/or your company.

Tell the Hotel the planner had NO authorization to get those points your company "paid" for.

I find the planner's behavior inexecusable... and should not be tolerated.

William

FWIW, typically, K = Thousand, M = Million. Thus, some initial confusion with the numbers you've used.

Also, I doubt that she was able to reap that much in the first place. According to MarriottRewards Terms and Conditions for event planners, they "may earn a maximum of 50,000 points for any given event."

Seems a little shady on the meeting planner's part, particularly since she is a company employee. And I applaud your concern over the company bottom line. But how is it any diferent (other than quantity) than you keeping the points if the company picked up the tab?

You are on a slippery slope here. Your logic could easily be extended to cover FF miles that you and I earn on company-paid travel. That said, I agree with your analysis.

Besides, points for travel you take personally, usually including hours well beyond 9 to 5, are qualitatively different from points for travel that you only booked. Secondly, most companies and even the federal government are aware and have resigned themselves to employees' personal use of FF miles. The same cannot be said of points for arranging meetings.

Not so, William. According to MarriottRewards Terms and Conditions,

"Point accrual is limited to individual travel and the room must be paid for individually by the member. If the member attends a convention or group meeting and individually pays Marriott directly for the room, he/she will be eligible to receive points for the stay. However, contract rooms, rooms reserved by corporations on an ongoing basis, master-billed rooms and rooms booked at the Marriott associate rate or friends and family rate are not eligible to earn points."

Mike -- I'm not sure how it works. If she is a company employee, how would she be able to charge fees and commission? Usually, in-house travel planners are salaried employees and do not earn any commission. What am I missing here?

OK. She works for our company but her business unit, which is based at our corporate HQ, gets a commission just like a travel agency. This allegedly defrays the cost of their providing this service. Whatever.

I do NOT agree that her conversion of these points is similar to my keeping the FF miles, for example, I earn as a result of company paid travel. The company knows that FF miles are awarded on most travel. The company also has an official policy that FF miles belong to the recipient. These are part of the policies practices and procedures kept by HR.

My position still stands.

Mike

Very confusing thread for several reasons.

I have participated in massive conventions at Marriotts on several occasions. I am also in the process of planning a comparatively small-scale event (i.e., I have the role as the meeting planner).

The notion of a 22% commission for the planner is something I've never heard of. I'm not buying it unless someone can provide more details. I can't even imagine a travel agent taking that much vigorish!

The people who stay at the Marriott under the master agreements don't earn points for those stays. That's pretty cut-and-dry. If the room cost isn't on your folio (and on your credit card), you aren't going to earn the points. That's common practice, and well-published in the rules.

Meeting planners DO earn points. But there are caps at reasonable levels. (50K plus bonuses, according the the "normal" rules.) I find it highly unlikely that Marriott gave one person 1.8 million points for planning an event. Hotel managers certainly do woo regular event planners with free rooms, dinners, etc. - but a couple million hotel points is probably a bit excessive.

In conclusion, I don't think anyone "stole" your points. If the meeting planner wasn't 100% candid with her boss about the perks and points she earned, that's a separate topic.