Mr. Vker

Marriott Plat line has told me that the day before cancelation didn't apply to plats. Longer cancelations did though.

KRSW

Let's be honest, if you're chasing points and rewards, you're not terribly interested in Marriott to begin with. It only takes a few cancellations to completely nuke any benefit one might receive from points earned.

I've noticed an ever-increasing number of "Advance Purchase -- No Refund" rates showing up on Marriott's site.

I have never used HotelTonight before, but I also just loaded the app on my phone tonight. I'll gladly let Marriott take a 15% haircut and give it to HotelTonight to be able to remain flexible.

NDDomer86

Three-day cancellation period for the Nashville Airport Marriott, so it is not just confined to the US Northeast.

Three-days seems a bit extreme period, but especially for an airport hotel...

CJKatl

While this does stink, hopefully there will be some flexibility for Plats. Under the current policy, i just had to cancel at four o'clock in the afternoon the day of a stay, well past the deadline, and was allowed to do so at no cost. A visa issue prevented my entering a country. I called from the airport and was put on hold. When she returned, the reservation clerk told me there would be no charge because I did this infrequently.

TravelinSperry

This is definitely not widespread yet. I just checked a Courtyard in Germany and a Marriott in London and both have a 1 day cancel policy. I also checked Prague for Starwood and it too was 1 day for the regular rate. I am Platinum however, so perhaps it is staying 1 day for Plats? (which would be an amazing benefit if all non-Plats are required to cancel 48 hours + 1 minute prior)

nacho

I had to do it once - SAS cancelled our flight down to DUS 12 hours before departure. It was supposed to be the last flight of the day so we arrive there in the evening. They cancelled it and we had to go first flight in the morning, we emailed the hotel and they were very understanding and they let us cut a night without charging us for it.

These things do happen and with 3 days notice it's impossible to do anything when situations like the above happened.

GUWonder

Marriott's hotels already tended to have worse cancellation terms for customers than other hotels nearby. This effort by Marriott is meant to try to boost revenue in more than one way, but this kind of situation just means I'll be doing more last minute bookings and more inclined to use "opaque" and other non-Marriott booking channels than I otherwise would have been or to use other hotels to book rates with better terms.

I'm seeing some hotels in Europe have gone from day of arrival cancellation terms to day before arrival cancellation terms.

christianj

Just noticed that a Starwood reservation I was trying to make also has the 3 days! I was going to make the same reservation yesterday and it had day of arrival and now it is 3 days. Thanks Marriott!

Often1

In time, hopefully there will be a move to offering "fully flexible" bookings, the same way most air carriers do. You can pay a higher rate and buy flexibility. For business travelers, the business proposition is whether you have the sort of travel which is fixed in advance and doesn't change or the sort of travel which varies at the last minute.

Emergency changes such as illness or weather, are covered by travel insurance and that again is a business proposition.

The larger issue is the one-size-fits-all approach.

MD/DC Flyer

That might be part of the strategy: When you have to balance
1) Loss of frequent customers because of the policy,
2) Keep those customers, but now because of opaque booking does not have to give benefits (both on the current stay, as well as on the margin for future stays) [plus, those who will go for status now have to stay additional night(s)], despite lower profit margin,
3) Sell rooms that otherwise go empty, either once, or twice (because someone forgot to cancel)

It might all end up to be a wise decision. In the end only Marriott have the number to crunch and support the decision. As always, FlyerTalk universe might not be as large as think it is.

Explorer789

In my experience, third-party travel sites do not have a better cancellation policy than booking directly with the hotel itself. Usually it is the same, unless they are offering some promo deal or you opt for the booking insurance for an extra fee.

christianj

I'm confused! We had this and now they have changed it. Until now you booked a higher rate for flexibility. That is now being taken away as the higher rates require a 3 day cancellation policy.

christianj

The policy change evidently also applies to award and cash & points reservations and NOT just revenue reservations.

OU812

I first noticed this move to a 2 or 3 day prior to arrival cancellation policy back in February at Marriott and SPG properties for larger cities.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/marri...on-policy.html

Seems like Marriott had quietly shifted that policy to a 3 day cancellation in a lot of locations. Not good and will definitely impact my business travel, at least until the other chains follow Marriott's lead.

Regards,


RIP...

GUWonder

I'm mainly talking of: booking hotel inventory at the last minute, often at distressed prices; and of migrating to different hotels that don't have such a bad cancellation policy; and of booking via alternative channels at a time when I'm sure that the cancellation deadline is highly unlikely to be a problem for me. That all means Marriott will see less willingness from me to pay a premium when getting my business directly than would otherwise be the case. I'm sure I'm not the typical customer in this regard, but I expect such harsh cancellation terms are going to lead to the sort of distressed inventory dumping by hotels that will serve me well, ceteris paribus except for my adjusted booking habits. My concern is that Marriott is going to really nail the MR/SPG elites/members if this kind of change in cancellation norms stick and spread to "competitors".