Has anyone else had any issues when paying for a stay with Marriott Gift Cards? I had a $2500 card from the bonus points promotion a few months ago, so I've been using it for several stays.

First off, are the gift cards supposed to be charged before the stay (as if you're paying in cash) or when you check out (as if you're paying with a credit card)? I would assume when you check out, but I usually tell the clerk when I check in that I have a gift card just so they won't charge my credit card early before I have a chance to put the charge on my gift card.

The first time I tried to use it, the hotel rep seemed confused on how to charge the card. He was surprised that the amount of the card exceeded the amount of the cost of the stay; he actually didn't return the card (I remembered later and got it back). Then when he charged the card, he rounded up the amount to the nearest dollar, so I was effectively overcharged by however many cents below a round dollar amount the amount of the bill was. When I checked out, my folio listed a refund for that amount, but to my credit card, so I could never get that refund (since a charge was never actually put on my credit card).

I later worked it out after several emails and phone calls with hotel management.

Then more recently, I had 704.38 remaining on my gift card which I wanted to use to pay for part of my stay (whose total cost was over 2000). The hotel rep was nice enough to call to find out the remaining balance on my card, but he then assumed that it would be okay to just charge 700 to my card. The weird thing is that he intended to keep the card (as he would if the card was emptied out). I had to specifically ask to charge the whole amount of the card. Later, I found that he only charged 704 to my card (and he still had the card). I called and asked to have the remaining 38 cents, but he didn't have the authority to charge less than a dollar. I eventually had to go through Marriott Rewards and have the manager of the hotel clear the original transaction completely and recharge my gift card for 704.38. Granted, the rep may have intended to return the card to me and forgot, but I still think it's weird that he didn't want to automatically clear out the card.

So I ended up fixing all of the problems, but I feel sort of dumb having to make all these calls for fractional dollar amounts. Am I doing something wrong? Should I not even mention I have a gift card until I check out? More than once for a long stay, though, my credit card has been charged in the middle of the stay, so I wanted to avoid that situation.