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Misuse of Corporate\Discounted Rate Codes

Misuse of Corporate\Discounted Rate Codes

 
Old Aug 6, 2006, 6:49 am
  #61  
 
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Interesting topic and one no one will cop too. Yes I use the codes and have been a plat member for a long time.

If you use the flyertalk website then you all have used a code for something that was not yours. This site exsists to help travelers find a better rate or insigts into booking your business or travel plans. Now we all say that I would never use a rate that is not mine and I always play by the rules, but come on, most of you that posted have 1000's of posts, guess you all just like to talk. If Marriott, Hilton, Holiday Inn have discounted rates and their website allows booking these, then they need to take care of that issue themselves.

I doubt Marriottguy is going to stop a Plat member and ask him for his ID and risk losing a person who they make the most money off of. But rest assured for you whiny people if I get caught I will pay the rack rate, understood! It is Marriotguys job to catch me and I know the cat a mouse game.

Now for all you lawyers and people who know the law, please spare me the lecture and save it for this site. They let people post information in a public form that is a private rate code. I like Flyertalk, and in fact use it more for finding out about places and rating hotels more than for cheating Marriott. But still this exsists and I will use this piece of information to my advantage.

Now instead of puting Marriottguy in the middle we should let Marriott themselves figure out how to stop the perceived abuse that exsists. It does take some measure of *alls to do something slightly dishonest and this is not a rampant as it probally seems. Save your retorts about slightly dishonest and I will not post again.

And Marriottguy if you let me know where your hotel is, I promise not to use any code I am not entitled too and will happily pay full fare.
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Old Aug 6, 2006, 9:21 am
  #62  
 
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Originally Posted by bomokandi1
Now we all say that I would never use a rate that is not mine and I always play by the rules, but come on, most of you that posted have 1000's of posts, guess you all just like to talk. If Marriott, Hilton, Holiday Inn have discounted rates and their website allows booking these, then they need to take care of that issue themselves.
I see you are a relative newbie so welcome to FT and the Marriott forum.....I think......
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Old Aug 6, 2006, 3:29 pm
  #63  
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My guess is that the majority of the thousands & millions of Marriott rooms that get booked are done so at rack rates, publicly available rates & corp rates that people are entitled to, rather than the majority of them being booked at rates people aren't entitled to. My guess is that the % of rooms being booked at rates people aren't entitled to is relatively small.

I'm glad that the code list is above because there are publicly available rates in the list that I didn't know about that have helped me save some $$ (especially at LHR Renaissance). And while they are publicly available it's not like Marriott's promoted them in ways that the average Joe would know about them.

Cheers.
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Old Aug 6, 2006, 7:00 pm
  #64  
 
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Originally Posted by Marriott_Guy
clarkef (and trekkie to a degree).

This is true that this does increase the total volume of room nights and overall revenue spent at a location. In addition to rate and other negotiated items that have already been listed (included the next one), is if the rate has 'Last Room Availability' (LRA) or Non LRA (NLRA). Like any other business that deals with capacities, X number of room nights can be absorbed at a certain negotiated discounted rate. If in a given year if projections (agreed upon by both the property and client) are extremely out of balance (assuming this is a LRA account), then believe me that is figured into the negotiations for the following year (either the LRA status of the code or the actual rate). Like other businesses as well, a displacement analysis is completed based on the stay pattern of the account.

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HI Marriott_Guy. I really didn't understand the reply. I agree that using a rate code that you are not entitled to is wrong. However, you also posted that it also hurts the company that "owns" the discounted code. My questions is simply, how does it hurt the company.
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Old Aug 6, 2006, 10:31 pm
  #65  
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Originally Posted by clarkef
HI Marriott_Guy. I really didn't understand the reply. I agree that using a rate code that you are not entitled to is wrong. However, you also posted that it also hurts the company that "owns" the discounted code. My questions is simply, how does it hurt the company.
A hotels rooms inventory is a fixed quantity, they can't produce additional ones if demand increases, so you must make your return on what you have, if you give too large of a discount on too many rooms there is no way to produce the expected results and your competition will beat you
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Old Aug 6, 2006, 10:54 pm
  #66  
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Is it me or did socrates answer make no sense? How is the competition (aka, Starwood, Hilton) going to 'beat' Marriott if - for example, Boeing, ATT - er, SBC -books the # of rooms they negotiated their discount on?

I don't think 'too large a discount' is given up front if what marriott_guy said is true - it's both sides figuring out the expected volume & coming up w/ a discount that is mutually agreeable. If it doesn't work, it gets re-negotiated by either or both sides for the next year.

Again, my prediction is those who will never use a discount they're not entitled to will stick w/ that, those that don't care will continue to do so & in the overall thousands or millions of rooms that Marriott books each year, 'pirated' codes are a minor issue.

But if the LHR Ren could continue w/ its publicly available rate that's a great deal I'd appreciate it I'd especially appreciate it for the London Mega-Do this November!

Cheers.
Cheers.
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Old Aug 7, 2006, 5:45 am
  #67  
 
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Originally Posted by SkiAdcock
Is it me or did socrates answer make no sense?
You are right. It made no sense. I think Socrates simply misunderstood clarkef's question.

The "company" being hurt that clarkef was refering to was the client with the discount code, not Marriott.
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Old Aug 7, 2006, 7:25 am
  #68  
 
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Originally Posted by SkiAdcock
Is it me or did socrates answer make no sense? How is the competition (aka, Starwood, Hilton) going to 'beat' Marriott if - for example, Boeing, ATT - er, SBC -books the # of rooms they negotiated their discount on?

I don't think 'too large a discount' is given up front if what marriott_guy said is true - it's both sides figuring out the expected volume & coming up w/ a discount that is mutually agreeable. If it doesn't work, it gets re-negotiated by either or both sides for the next year.

Again, my prediction is those who will never use a discount they're not entitled to will stick w/ that, those that don't care will continue to do so & in the overall thousands or millions of rooms that Marriott books each year, 'pirated' codes are a minor issue.

But if the LHR Ren could continue w/ its publicly available rate that's a great deal I'd appreciate it I'd especially appreciate it for the London Mega-Do this November!

Cheers.
Cheers.
What he is saying is that if too many of the rooms are being used at a particular discounted rate, then they will not be as profitable as other hotels not offering the rate. Hence when negotiations for the discount come in the following years, Marriott or the hotel may not give as good a discount because so many rooms were used in the previous year.

Correct me if I am wrong on this one.
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Old Aug 7, 2006, 8:34 am
  #69  
 
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Originally Posted by dagwood
What he is saying is that if too many of the rooms are being used at a particular discounted rate, then they will not be as profitable as other hotels not offering the rate. Hence when negotiations for the discount come in the following years, Marriott or the hotel may not give as good a discount because so many rooms were used in the previous year.

Correct me if I am wrong on this one.
If a hotel was 100% full all of the time, that might be the case, but if a full-service hotel charged rack rate all of the time, I assure you that the hotel would never be full.

While Socrates said that too many room going for a lower rate would generate less revenue than ones at full price, it ignores the fact that unsold rooms generate _zero_ revenue.

If you can reasonably predict that you can give a hotel so many room-nights a year, that helps them forecast their revenue. The "reasonable prediction" is based on historical use. If one stays at a particular corporate rate, this is added to the tally of room-nights used. You should see the rate the airline crews get

Marriott_Guy's assertion that the number of someone's corporate rate rooms actually booked at a particular proerty (his?) did not match that of what the corporation's travel departement booked and was questioning the discrepancy as perhaps being caused by "cheaters". This ignores the "honest" outside users of the rate (visitors, consultants, applicants) as well as the fact that Marriott (along with most travel related companies) are trying to steer people to use direct booking (their web site in particular).
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Old Aug 7, 2006, 10:52 am
  #70  
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Also the other hotel chains have (if it's a large corp) negotiated rates as well. When I worked w/ AT&T it didn't matter what chain I stayed w/, we had a corp rate. Same w/ the other F50 & F500 companies I worked for. So technically all the hotel chains are in the same boat. I don't see Marriott losing out to the competition based on corp rates (unless they did some lousy negotiating w/ the corp).

Again I think the amount of cheaters is miniscule overall, is spread among all the hotel chains, and those who do use codes they're not entitled to probably stay at different properties for the most part, so not sure an individual property really takes a large hit.

What I always found amusing was, when I worked for the big corps, even if I did find a better publicly available rate I was told not to use it, to use the corp rate instead cuz the corp had to hit a certain room volume to continue to get discounts. So I think Marriott & the other chains probably do ok - ie, it all evens out in the end.

Cheers.
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Old Aug 7, 2006, 4:33 pm
  #71  
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Originally Posted by SkiAdcock
Is it me or did socrates answer make no sense? How is the competition (aka, Starwood, Hilton) going to 'beat' Marriott if - for example, Boeing, ATT - er, SBC -books the # of rooms they negotiated their discount on?
Sorry I tried to keep it simple without all the details
Say you run a 10 room hotel called "my hotel" and your comp also has a 10 room hotel called "bob's hotel"

Now let's say you sell 5 of your rooms to IBM at $50 and 3 to AT&T at $60 and the last 2 at your "rack" rate of $100 your daily room revenue would only be $630

Now let's say Bob's Hotel sells only 5 rooms but at $140 for a total of $700

Bob's hotel beats the competition in both top line revenue and profit because it's more expensive to have 10 rooms occupied than it is to have 5 rooms occupied

Hope this was more clear
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Old Aug 7, 2006, 4:36 pm
  #72  
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Originally Posted by SkiAdcock
I don't think 'too large a discount' is given up front if what marriott_guy said is true - it's both sides figuring out the expected volume & coming up w/ a discount that is mutually agreeable. If it doesn't work, it gets re-negotiated by either or both sides for the next year.
BTW: the discount depends on the individual situation but if both sides agree the expected room night production is 1K per year but ends up being 2K (this does happen) the hotel could be hurt by this
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Old Aug 7, 2006, 4:37 pm
  #73  
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Originally Posted by dagwood
What he is saying is that if too many of the rooms are being used at a particular discounted rate, then they will not be as profitable as other hotels not offering the rate. Hence when negotiations for the discount come in the following years, Marriott or the hotel may not give as good a discount because so many rooms were used in the previous year.

Correct me if I am wrong on this one.
you have it 100% correct
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Old Aug 7, 2006, 4:40 pm
  #74  
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Originally Posted by SkiAdcock
Also the other hotel chains have (if it's a large corp) negotiated rates as well. When I worked w/ AT&T it didn't matter what chain I stayed w/, we had a corp rate. Same w/ the other F50 & F500 companies I worked for. So technically all the hotel chains are in the same boat. I don't see Marriott losing out to the competition based on corp rates (unless they did some lousy negotiating w/ the corp).
What your assuming is the amount of inventory available is equal at each hotel but that isn't the case, a 500 room hotel is able to offer more rooms at a discount than a 100 room hotel, so in this example the 500 room hotel would most likely offer a rate to AT&T but the 100 room hotel probably would not
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Old Aug 7, 2006, 11:23 pm
  #75  
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All I know is no matter what hotel chain I stayed at they had a corp rate for every F50 & F500 company I worked for (and still do as a consultant). If the rates didn't work out (on either side) guess what - each side (hotel & corp) could sort it out in their negotiations the next year.

It's not like it was the negotiation for a gazillion years for goodness sake. BOTH SIDES negotiated what they thought was the best deal at the time. Geesh.

And - given there were times I could have stayed at the various hotel chains on 'publicly available rates' for far less than my corp negotiated for, but my corp felt I had to stay at the hotel at their (higher) negotiated rate to 'keep it for the next year', 'don't cry me a river' on the few who decide to take advantage of other rates.

Not saying I'd do it, but I sure as heck feel it all evens out. And again - yawn, this topic gets brought up every year w/ about the same discussions on both sides by the same parties.

PS - Most F50 & F500 corps book the chain, not indy hotels so I don't necessarily buy into the post above. It truly didn't matter if I was at small or big hotel - if it had Marriott or Hilton or Hyatt or Westin in its name THAT was the corp rate I got.

PSS - I've been told that since I said good things about the publicly available rate at LHR Ren they may not be honoring it or reducing that. I'm not saying that's due to Socrates or marriott_guy, but all I know is everyone could access it before & I had it for 2 years & now it's not looking available, so - if you do come across a great rate, public or not, put it in the code list but don't mention it here. You don't want it taken away, even if you're entitled to it....

Cheers.
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