Originally Posted by
SkiAdcock
Odds are Corporate is going to say if it's outsourced then you don't get points.
While it's irritating to do so, people can always call, email or fax a property in advance to ask if points are credited for parking & then make their decision based upon that.
And while in nacho's case, there was less expensive parking nearby, that's not always the case (especially in larger Metropolitan areas).
Some hotels will negotiate a discounted parking fee w/ the outsourced vendor for their guests or elite guests, although not all do. I stayed at a CY in Chicago that did that.
Cheers.
They might say so but then it's their problem not providing the right information about the hotel. One of the reasons I like Marriott is that there aren't any 'non-participating' properties for promo etc. For me they are very consistent - so this was a bit of a shock to me.
Why can't they be just nice to guests by just giving them points for parking in a 'outsourced' car park? What if the hotel 'outsourced' their restaurants, bars, spa etc.? No one knows, but again, the hotel really should tell guests in advance about these things.
A lot of hotel staffs might not even 'realise' these things mean to people, and quite often I was told the wrong information - such as breakfast time.
FYI, the first email replied I got from the GM was that he claimed the missing points were the missing Gold bonus points (the parking is roughly 25% of the room rate). Even he doesn't realise about the car park point thing.
As far as I know even if you buy a postcard and stamps you get points, the hotel doesn't earn money on stamps (in theory they are not allowed to charge more than the face value), why not car park?
It doesn't matter if there are car parks around the hotel - in theory I could just take a taxi, or leave the car in a garage nearby and take a taxi. It's the principle - people ought to be informed at the time of booking, so that they can make their choice of what to do.
We used to call to each hotel in Germany to notify them that we expect parcels, and each time the FD almost got offended by us asking. We stopped doing that because it seems very stupid to call.
Seriously I doubt that all FD here in Marriotts in Europe knows about the points thing, You are very likely to get a answer such as 'of course', or 'I don't know'.
I think Marriott ought to make up their mind about these things - please don't do the 'in general you get points for incidentals, but there are exceptions' thing.