I spoke to Starwood Consumer Affairs on Friday. Basically things have not changed.
As per the franchaisee agreement, the property needs to do nothing (yes, nothing) unless it is a walk. and this is not a walk, so they have played by the rules.
I pointed out to the consumer affairs exec I spoke to that this is very unfair to the customer. He said that Starwood believes moral pressure on franchaisees in situations like this- it has clearly not worked in this case, so he has kicked it up to the level of Starwood directors who are looking at this issue.
From a personal point of view, 60K points in compensation stands. And on a more important issue (i.e. setting a precedent in case something like this happens again so that customer is not left stranded), I must admit that I got nowhere other than a promise that it is being looked into.
I also discovered that this is not that rare an occurance, but in most cases the property settles it with the customer directly and keeps the customer happy. Clearly that has not happened in this case.