When did Marriott decide that Plats (and presumably everyone else) no longer could speak with customer service representatives without going several rounds with the automated system that boasts that it "can understand full sentences" - although it seems to have a great deal of difficulty with the sentence "I would like to speak with a representative"?

In the past, I remember calling the number and entering my MR number and immediately getting a human.

Not today. I had to speak my MR number, my full name and my zip code before even having a chance to state what I wanted. After I said I wanted a representative, the response acknowledged my request, but was nosy and asked about what. My response was that I wanted to speak about the Summer Bonus. At that point, the automated voice read back to me that last 5 (FIVE!) credit card bonus point amounts that had been posed to my account. It took a couple of minutes. When I finally reached a human (a caring, competent, friendly, knowledgeable human), I asked her about the change in the system and she just replied in a funny voice that "they decided to revamp it."

Argh.

The rep was great - I was calling to change my bonus since I had the 15 nights/20K offer and had only had 3 stays/7 nights. She was kind enough to go ahead and deposit a one-night cert in my account.

I did get an opportunity to answer a survey at the end of the call in which I gave the rep high marks all-around and the automated system the lowest possible rating.

Am I the only one who has noticed this? Or complained about it? BTW, I had to call Hilton Honors about an issue earlier today and got a human right after entering my HH number...