lsugolfer

Go check into hotel and they immediately tell me they're full and moving me down the street. Being knowledgeable about the Platinum walked compensation, I ask when I'll receive the $200 and 90,000 points.

FDC gets wide eyed and immediately finds a room for me.

Should I have just let them walk me and argued for the cash and points on the back end instead?

RogerD408

Sounds like they were looking for an easy mark, and that wasn't you! Someone arriving later probably got walked.

If you were out for compensation, then yes, not saying anything until it's done would have been the thing to do. But then likely it would have been a fight to get all that would have been due. Not sure it's worth it. I usually have a full agenda when travelling and being diverted to chasing payment is not on the list.

Being after the fact, I would publish your experience here and Trip Advisor naming the property and letting others know how they treat their guests so others might be more prepared.

MSPeconomist

Doesn't the decision about which would be better depend somewhat on your purpose/schedule for the trip as well as the nature of the new hotel? Most people would happily be walked to a RC that truly is located down the block, but not at all happy to receive $200 for being sent to an inferior hotel in a bad location.

Maybe one lesson is to always get details about the proposed alternative hotel and its location first and maybe try to negotiate for a better hotel as step one, assuming that you have time to do this.

I wonder whether the FDC was unaware of the $200 guarantee or simply assumed that you would be unaware.

Also, if the hotel had been planning to just send you to the other hotel with no points and no apology, this should be reported to Marriott. It's really unethical to attempt to walk a guest and give them nothing, while expecting them to pay for the new hotel (even at the reserved rate for the old hotel).

lsugolfer

The hotel is comparable. I've stayed at both properties. And yes, she had already called the other hotel with me in front of her and indicated I would be arriving in a few minutes.

It was then that I asked about the compensation and viola a room was available.

I'm planning to call Marriott corporate in a little bit and if there's not a solution remedied, I'll publish the hotel name.

pinniped

Kind of depends on the stay. A one-nighter on a business trip? I'd just accept the walk without comment...I'll stay at Super 8 if you're paying me 90,000 points. That's worth well over $1,000 to me since I redeem about one Travel Package a year.

A weeklong trip with family? I'd press hard to stay in the original hotel - or make very sure that the new hotel is equal or superior to the booked one. ("Equal" would need to take into account the benefits and points received from whatever Marriott status I had at the time.)

Kacee

Don't understand this comment. No shows are a fact of the lodging industry, and even the best hotels overbook. Sometimes they wind up overcommitted, and walks are thus occasionally inevitable.

So the question is not whether a property occasionally walks a guest, but how they handle it. I got walked once at Boston Harbor Hotel, and they handled it so well, it's still one of my favorite properties in the world.

rasheed

I think it is complicated and you do have to request the compensation at the beginning. The whole idea of the rather massive compensation is that *you should not get walked*.

You got the room your reserved and obviously, you should not have been asked to go to another property.

You might see it as an opportunity missed, but I think you would have a hard time trying to get the 90k and payment if you took the walk and tried to claim after. Really, you needed to get a walk and confirmation of the compensation before you left (essentially, no rooms whatsoever). This is how the Marriott stick works on the properties.

However, I assume you were going to get a comped room down the street and when they now found a room, you had to now pay?

Rasheed

CJKatl

Oversimplification. If "most people" were checking into a SHS at midnight for a one-night stay, paid for by the client, with only six hours to sleep, having already made plans to be picked up at the SHS in the morning, "most people" would probably rather not be walked, losing an hour's sleep to getting to the new hotel and moving plans. Bottom line: even under the best of circumstances, walking is a time consuming pain.

Absolutely. I've experienced both, and it's all in how it's handled. Recently, I got a call from a non-Marriott hotel asking, "would you mind if we moved you... and of course, we are paying for the new hotel. Just go straight there." Within the past year, I was also dropped a non-Marriott hotel that informed me they were not honoring my reservation because they were fully booked, and the clerk told me "it's not my job" to find you another room. (The reservation line called the manager who came in a found me a room. My understanding is it's no longer the clerk's job to to anything at that hotel.)

lsugolfer

Was going to have to pay either way. They were selling the walk as "the same type of property and the same room/rate"

RogerD408

My issue is when the OP arrived they had no room, it wasn't until he asked for what he was due that they found a room. I'm not saying they lied, but obviously still had rooms that were not occupied. Some poor unsuspecting sole later in the evening probably got walked and if they didn't know what they were entitled to, I doubt they got anything. This smacks of deceptive tactics and who knows what else they have/will pull.

There are properties that know how to do this well and some even go overboard. That's great and I commend them. But what happened here not so much. Now was it the FDCs plan to fly under the radar, or is this a property policy?

Kacee

OP reports being told the hotel was "full" which I would interpret to mean overbooked. They wouldn't have attempted to walk him unless that was true. So I don't see an untruth here.

They also pro-actively offered a room at a comparable property nearby.

So I don't see anything horrendously wrong here. While there's a failure to proactively offer Plat compensation for the walk, I wouldn't give a bad TA review on that basis alone.

In fact, OP might have been better off taking the walk . . . when you get the hotel's last room, it's often their worst room.

joshua362

I think this is the clear winner. They were probably overbooked by several and the FDC was instructed to move as many as possible using this tactic. What's the loss especially if they aren't offering the first night's room cost as well? Not everyone is up to speed on the various guarantees, carve outs, ins and outs and gotchas as we are here (a tiny % of the universe).

For instance, is the first night and transportation to the new hotel (if needed) included in the guarantee?

pinniped

I would find it to be incredibly dirty pool on Marriott's part if they refused to honor their elite guarantee because the guest didn't demand it in the lobby.

I could easily see it going down like this:
- Elite guest doesn't know about the guarantee at all because, basically, he's not a Flyertalker and doesn't nerd out reading the Marriott T's & C's
- Said Gold/Plat gets walked
- He shows up at the work site the next day and says "You guys won't believe what happened to me last night..."
- Colleague says "I had that happen once...got 90,000 points and some cash for it! You should phone Marriott right away..."
- Guy checks out the website, reads about the guarantee, realizes his is a textbook case covered by it, phones Marriott...

The website doesn't mention anything about asking for the compensation. It does, however, say your MR# has to have been on the reservation the entire time. (The adjacent T's & C's are about Elite Benefits Guarantees, where it does require you to ask onsite to collect compensation.)

It also does include first-night's room. You shouldn't have to pay the hotel you're walked to.

TomBrady

I would have taken the points and cash.

lsugolfer

Well yea, as evidenced by my attempt to collect.