Happy

I notice that the hotel disappeared from the list of canceled reservation, probably due to the "address" the software pointed to no longer exists in Marriott's system. Now the description in place is a location mark and direction but when you click it, it gives you an error.

Because I have made lots of bookings and cancellations as our itinerary kept evolving, I have made screen shots on both Upcoming Reservation and Canceled Reservation after each massive changes. I must say the Print button on Marriott site is Very Handy for this purpose - it opens up a new window and you then can print to PDF - very useful for a trip that might have 20 reservations with many changes on both dates and locations. So at least I have a record of a cancellation should anything happens to the credit card down the road.

Wonder the poster who has made a Prepaid reservation has gotten the refund yet.

NotJustDreaming

[email protected]
I just followed the tripadvisor link and see that the GM replied to an unfavourable review (cancelled points stay) requesting the poster contact him at the above email.

sdsearch

On TripAdvisor, I see that the hotel has renamed itself to Anew Hluhluwe Hotel & Safaris. (I don't know if Anew is a chain or not.) It's presumably still open because people are posting reviews since the name change.

kcaluwae

I checked all the payments I made this weekend and noticed that this hotel actually didn't send me a deposit mail despite being a prepaid reservation. So I haven't made a prepayment and at least don't need to worry about getting money back.

We still did not decide if we're gonna keep our reservation in this hotel or switch to another protea or non-protea hotel nearby. (Richards bay might be an option)

To make sure the hotel doesn't try to charge us afterwards I will make sure to cancel our reservation with the GM of the hotel and Marriott if we decide to switch hotels.

BTW : my mail to marriott is still unanswered up till today

kcaluwae

They're back online :-)
http://anewhotels.com/hotels/hluhluwe-safaris/

Anew has 2 hotels apparently, launched 1st of July so it's probably just the owners of the hotel who manage one more hotel and decided to group them under a common name (brand)

Happy

Marriott already canceled your booking and wiped the hotel out from its system. Though as a courtesy our emails should be answered but apparently the CS dept does not seen any need for it since the hotel no longer under Marriott flag!

Have you contacted the GM via the email address shown in the reply to a TripAdvisor Review?

Thanks for the info. Still the whole thing is handled rather poorly especially Protea has not provided an email address for affected customers to contact the new management which also has not reached out whatsoever.

Personally we dont bother to deal with them any more.

Since we only plan for 2 days for the park, this is easy for us to modify our plan, just a couple more hours additional driving, and equally less time inside the park.
On day 1 we would drive up from Richards Bay - 1 hr one way. Many people actually just do a day trip from Richards Bay. The park itself also advertises heavily on day trip. So obviously if it is pressed, one day is good enough.

On day 2 we would drive "thru" the park onto our next stop enroute to Kruger. There are at least 2 little towns enroute that have quality B&Bs found on Booking. So everything actually works out.

kcaluwae

No response from the hotel yet but Marriott responded to my inquiry about the reservation. Apparently my first email got lost somewhere, as I got a quick response that they had no details about my case number when I wrote a second time referring to my first case number.

Response from Marriott: The cancellation of the reservation by Marriott does not mean the reservation is cancelled. The hotel has taken over the reservation and the reservation is still valid.

Any questions, cancellations about the reservation should be handled with the hotel directly. I asked if they could cancel the reservation for me but they don't.

I've sent the hotels 5 mails on 2 different email addresses by now but all have remained unanswered. I know I could pick up the phone and call them but unfortunately you have no proof or written trace of phone calls.

SkiAdcock

Given you're not getting far w/ emails, it may be time to pick up the phone. You can ask for the name of the person you're speaking w/ or ask for the GM.

Cheers.

Kagehitokiri

re tripadvisor link above, sometimes google cache works, in this case only partially >
http://webcache.googleusercontent.co...utf-8&oe=utf-8
i have seen many tripadvisor removals, and i do not even really use the site

cova

I had a paid stay 2 years ago at the Sheraton Noosa Heads in Australia, which deflagged from Sheraton to Sofitel. The rate was honored, of course with no Sheraton benefits provided during the stay.

At least the reservation continued to show in the Sheraton system, but you could not open it. If you tried - it said to call. Maybe Marriott should copy Sheraton in this regard.

kcaluwae

Miracles happen once in a while :-)
Finally, on the day I decided I was going to call them the hotel got back to me by mail and I managed to cancel the reservation with them.

Thanks for the advice I got in this thread.