Perhaps I don't understand how the relationship between Marriott and the hotel owners. Why would Marriott choose not to just give emanon256 an extra 25K points to make him whole (other than the meals) or even a few more miles to compensate for the meals? Suppose he transfers $50K in business to other hotels (there are one or two in NY, for example). Wouldn't that cost them more than 50K points?

The only explanation I can think of is that the management is disputing what he says (strange since at least for some he has documentation of his claims). If he had previously had issues or demanded compensation in other incidents, they might discount his side of the "he said, they said" dispute. But, it doesn't sound like that is the case.

I once had a dispute with Amazon in which they were technically correct in not choosing to honor one of their policies (but it was a bit of a technical loophole) and seemed ethically problematic. We buy lots of books from Amazon to distribute at seminars as well as other stuff (remarkably, we actually get a lower price from Amazon than as authors from the publisher). I told them I could accept their stance but disagreed with it. I estimated their margins from selling books and told them that I would send all of our business to other vendors until they had forgone in margin what we had lost as a result of the questionable transaction at Amazon. That day I received an email changing their stance and refunding the money and I have given them lots of business ever since.