lsugolfer

Alabama hasn't played a home game at Legion Field in Birmingham in at least 10 years. But yes, the hotels in Tuscaloosa (and really any other SEC Town) employ a myriad of tactics on football weekends.

In the case of Tuscaloosa, I've seen Bessmer/Hoover hotels invoke the pricing as well as properties in Meridian, MS.

freeflyin

I wish that Marriott would have some control over what the maximum the hotels could charge for a PLT override. I am looking at a RI that wants 700.00 for a studio queen-9 months away. When I see these kinds of greedy rates, I put those properties on my list of those to avoid at other times

pinniped

That's when Marriott needs to step up and say "Sorry, Alabama vs. the Charleston Southern Buccaneers is not, in fact, the Super Bowl." @:-)

(OK, I realize this would have to happen in franchisee contracts, but still...)

lsugolfer

You've never witnessed Alabama fans, have you?

All kidding aside, I'm on the losing end of this because the LSU game is typically one of the bigger home games in our road cities. In some of the towns I've given up on even getting a room there because of the issues I've run into.

I'll stay in adjacent cities and use the Marriott's there or use AirBNB if I want to be in the middle of the action.

Auburn - Montgomery
Tuscaloosa - Meridian
Athens - NE Atlanta
Gainesville - JAX/St. Aug
Starkville - Columbus
Oxford - Memphis
College Station - Houston

The others are large enough where the hotels have frequent events year round that bring their numbers up...

I've had hotels (Marriott and other brands) outright cancel reservations without notice because I had a lower rate, change rate rules on me without notice...thinking I wouldn't recognize, and not honor requests. Partially because of the rate I may have obtained (I book 50 weeks out when I can) and partially because of the City/Zip on my account.

NewEXP

That's a really interesting suggestion - think I'll try that. When you file with the BBB, do you have to find a local chapter where the business is located, or is it nationally centralized?

CJKatl

Huh? Beaver Stadium is a little over a half hour from the Altoona CY, straight up I-99. UPJ is almost an hour away and mostly not on highway. University of MD is almost three hours away.

Altoona hotels have always been booked solid for PSU game days, with two minimum stays required. Where do you think all those people stay?

NewEXP

Except that in my particular case, that would be ok. My employer requires me to get the Federal CONUS hotel rates *unless* the hotel is the conference hotel, in which case there's no specified limit. So unless the rate they'd charge me is simply ridiculous, it doesn't really matter. I have the funding and am willing to pay for the benefits of being at the conference hotel. Conversely, in my current situation where I've been forced to reserve a room at another local hotel, the Federal rate I'm required to get is even lower than the conference rate at the conference hotel, so I'm going to end up with a much worse room/property - yet another reason I'm so ticked about this.

The experiences people are relating here about how hard it is to take advantage of this benefit makes me seriously wonder why Marriott offers it in the first place. Isn't there some general principle in psychology that says you'll like someone a lot less if at first they liked you and then then changed to disliking you as compared to how you feel about someone who never liked you to begin with? That's kinda how I feel. Most Plat members are probably like me in that the see this benefit and file it away in the back of their heads as a handy "insurance" policy - in fact, that's exactly how Marriott plugs it. But if 80 or 90% of the time when they wind up in a situation where they need it, Marriott finds some reason to refuse it, they're probably going to be a lot more pissed than if the benefit had never been offered in the first place. The only way I can see this benefit as being a "net win" for Marriott would be if most Plats never even try to use it - in that case, maybe the advertising value for them claiming they have this benefit might outweigh the negatives of potentially losing the high-volume customers who get angry when they realize it's mostly a sham.

VickiSoCal

We have never been denied a platinum override rate.

pinniped

The way the hotel chains market their override benefits as an elite perk, you should be able to get that room. If the individual hotels can opt out of any "peak" weekend they like, then what's the point of having the guarantee be part of the program to begin with?

In most of these little SEC towns, if there's no football game, then there's likely no need for the override. Guessing it's not terribly hard to get a room in Tuscaloosa on a random Tuesday night.

That should be outright illegal, regardless of hotel programs/status/etc.

NewEXP

How many times have you had to invoke the benefit, and do you have any sense as to why the hotels were already full those times?

MSPeconomist

Where do people stay for Penn State games? All in the Nittany Lion Inn, of course.

NewEXP

Wow - here's an interesting plot twist. I emailed the representative from the Woodlands Waterway Marriott a link to this thread so he could see the interest their denial of my platinum availability guarantee had generated. He sent me a reply reiterating that they would not honor the guarantee, told me this was the most negative interaction he'd ever had with a Platinum member, *and* (this is the interesting part) he cc'ed the Dean of my college (I'm a professor) on the email! He actually went to the trouble of looking up her email to do this. I guess (?) it was meant to intimidate me into not discussing this situation openly with other travelers here? Bizarre, and ultra-unprofessional IMHO. More material to put in my complaint to the BBB and Marriott HQ.

Edit to update. Re-reading his email, I just noticed that the representative from the hotel is actually the GM. Unbelievable someone that high up would behave this way.

freeflyin

Thanks for letting us know which property is handling this so poorly. From my perspective,they created this issue for themselves by opening the room block early. It is now up to them to make the correction. I cannot understand why they are resisting,especially since you have stated that you are ok with a higher rate.

NewEXP

At this point, I actually feel like I have a responsibility to fellow Marriott patrons to get this out in the public domain so others will know what type of business they would be dealing with if they are considering staying at the Woodlands Waterway Marriott (and yes, I'm using the name again here to maximize the chances of these posts turning up in search results for the hotel's name). I mean, who goes to the trouble of looking up the email address of a professor's Dean and cc'ing them in response to an email about a customer service issue? Not only is it totally unprofessional, it also belies a complete lack of understanding of the value of free speech in the university system.

lsugolfer

I stay at this property a few times a year as do about 15 other colleagues of mine as a major client of ours has their office in the complex adjacent to this property.

We'll be staying elsewhere from now on if that's how they want to handle interaction with elite members.