Cargojon

Short summary:

I work for a company that is one of the top 10 largest employers in the world.

I've been Marriott gold or plat for many years, have only worked for this company for about 2 years.

With the exception of a few isolated locations that I frequent, by and large our corporate rates with Marriott are lousy or non-existent. And since our corporate booking engine tracks spend / bookings vs. available rates it steers me away from Marriott much more that it allows me to stay there. For example, Crowne Plaza rate = $99, Marriott rate = $199.

Is there anyone in Marriott I can contact to discuss this? I'm not in the corporate travel department or purchasing, but simply want to see what the story is between my company and Marriott....and if anything can be done about it.

thoughts?

RogerD408

There may be a personal issue between your corporate travel desk and Marriott. Going directly to Marriott may not be a wise career choice. I'd suggest starting with your travel desk to find out if they are working under any directives you're not aware of. People make decisions for some of the wildest reasons (just read a few FT threads). What you think should be possible may not be allowed by someone else.

CJKatl

I have worked for two of the five largest companies on the planet for seventeen years, and still work for a "subsidiary" of one of those companies. (Long story: we are independent or still attached depending on the specific issue..travel being one of the areas where we are still attached.) RogerD408 is giving you the right advice. Do not reach out to Marriott. How would you feel if someone in the travel department reached out to someone you deal with directly and started questioning the work you've done?

Sometimes it's a hard pill to swallow. Examples: To get better average rates the corporate travel department has agreed to guarantee a certain number of rooms a year and is willing to pay a little more than the going rate on slower nights, or is getting a legal kickback on each room used. My issue with these things is the extra money comes out of my expense center but the rebate or benefit goes to the company via the corporate travel department. Nonetheless, I've accepted that it's better to bite my tongue.

While sometimes I think I can do better than the travel department, I know I don't know the entire story and my meddling will backfire on me in the end. (Figuratively and literally!)

Cargojon

Thanks for the advice - and you are both correct. My intent would have been to keep my name entirely out of the conversation, merely to point out to someone "hey, you know we don't do much business with you, might want to look into that" and leave it alone.

I'm really hoping that the SPG / Marriott merger/buyout actually helps in this regards. Who knows, maybe the problem will take care of itself on its own.

Just tired of seeing Crowne Plaza hotels at 60% the price of a Fairfield Inn I guess.

writerguyfl

Working for one of the largest employers is not the same thing as working for a company that has the largest number of employees who travel. Sites online say that Walmart is the largest employer in the US with roughly 2.2 million employees. It's just a guess, but I imagine that very few of those folks travel as part of their job.

From my experience working in hotels, I know that chain-wide corporate rates are basically a numbers game. Once a company hits a certain number of room nights (measured in thousands or tens-of-thousands), they start getting discounts. Those discounts are usually percentages off of the rack or standard corporate rate. Where I was, the maximum discount was 20%.

Individual hotels were encouraged to offer larger discounts (or set nightly rates) for companies that provide significant business at the hotel. Those rates are tied to the "code" that is used at the chain-wide level. A single code makes life easier for the guest and also allows the chain to easily track the amount of business provided by the company.

Certainly, there may be some of the unusual conditions that RogerD408 and CJKatl mention at play. But, the simplest explanation could be that your company doesn't provide enough business to Marriott hotels to warrant any discounts. If another chain provides higher discounts and you booking engine steers you to those hotels, I wouldn't expect anything to change.

Although I concur with the opinion that you shouldn't take it upon yourself to contact Marriott, I will say that the people in charge of this area would be at the National or Global Sales Office.

SkiAdcock

My first thought was that another chain offered a better discount than Marriott was willing to do, so the corporate contract is more w/ the other chain & steering bizness to the other chain.

Cheers.

darthbimmer

It may seem odd to ask this in the MR forum, but what's the problem here? If CPs routinely come up cheaper than FFIs with your corp rate, why not go all-in with IHG?

Often1

If OP is working for a top 10, travel contracts aren't negotiated by the "travel desk" but by specialists reporting to the CFO. Marriott isn't going to discuss anything with OP nor will OP even get to anyone at Marriott who could discuss this if he could.

As others note, interfering in your employer's negotiations with third parties is a good way to make some powerful enemies very quickly.

There are any number of reasons why your employer has chosen to give its business to another chain. If you are planning on sticking with your current employer, I would switch to its preferred chain.

dayone

The responsibility of a corporate travel department is to provide acceptable lodging options at the lowest prices, not facilitate your preference for a particular travel program.

dank0014

Our corporate rates are not much different than the corporate rates....sometimes only about 10% difference. I know we are easily one of Marriotts top customers too, but you have to realize that there are many fine details you are not aware of. Though j don't work for our travel department, I know the leader there and know our contract gives us a healthy kick back at year end based upon our spend and number of room nights.

Even our meeting contracts give us kick backs, sometimes of up to 25-30% back on top of our corporate discount.

I would not recommend you trying to contact Marriott directly.

CJKatl

As mentioned up-thread, this is my beef with being locked into the corporate contracts. Staying within budget is considered in my personal bonus calculation. I could stay somewhere for $150 or somewhere for $175, with the company ultimately getting back $40 for that stay. Even though the second room ultimately costs the company less, my budget is hit for the full initial cost and never credited with the rebate. On top of that, we are hit for a booking fee each time we use the corporate booking tool.

RogerD408

Not getting the rebate is much better than getting socked with a penalty.

Our Telecom department would bill all departments based upon usage at standard rates, but then when the actual bills showed up they would randomly choose a department to "allocate" any overage (funny how there were no underages, that we know of) and there was no fighting it. So if you were close to budget and your department came up for the hit, BAM! Fortunately my management believed in being a good corp citizen and rolled back the uncontrollable costs from facilities/corporate when measuring performance.