Originally Posted by
sophiegirl
Assuming (and as I have no evidence to the contrary...) that the OP did contact Marriott, and was told the card would be accepted, he is understandably upset. Early in my travel life I certainly would not have thought to verify it again, and in fact did not know that accepting these was optional by a property until I read this thread.
Personally, I think that stinks. IMO, a Marriott card, sold by Marriott, should be accepted at Marriott...expecting the customer to verify that seems inhospitable, to say the least.
With regards to his credit - if he bought the certs on the card, and is now having the "same" charges pre-authorized to it...that's a pretty hefty hit, and I certainly couldn't have carried it easily in my 20's.
If they would take the cards, checking in /out every few days would allow the OP to "pay up", releasing some of the pre-authorization....but sounds as if that is kind of moot now.
Pooker, I am sorry. Tough situation to be in, and I hope it works out. One thing I will say - as you have now learned, there are many facets to be considered when buying gift cards. A "good promotion" is only one of them - regardless of what the bloggers may tell you.
Agree with what sophiegirl posted.
Originally Posted by
orca15
I really hope you don't let this go without a fight. I think the "participating" thing is a red herring; I would be extremely surprised if your hotel was on a non-participating list, assuming you aren't in Timbuktu or some such. Get the GM in a room with a phone, call the gift card line, as for a senior supervisor, and get it straightened out. I guarantee you the gift card customer service management isn't going to want to let this go any more than you do. Tell the GM you plan to post on every travel site you can find, and follow through.
Later on, when you catch your breath, go back to them (GC) and insist on a free night, or some other compensation, for the first hotel refusing the card. IMO this whole fiasco started with failure to deliver the real gift card (same thing happened to me, and I just cancelled it, BTW).
Normally I am not one to throw a hand grenade when a simple mistake is made, but you have suffered a real loss of time and financial hardship, not to mention having to scrimp on food, and it's because the GC folks aren't getting the word out.
Doubt you can get around the pre-authorization problem, but the failure to accept the card is unsat. Have the GC folks figure out how to charge the card, deduct it from your balance, and refund your CC - anything else is unacceptable. Fight!! and report back!
Also agree. Unless the OP is in Timbuktu (no offense to Timbuktu) my guess is most of the 3,000+ hotels in Marriott's family do accept them. Putting aside the pre-paid issue for the moment, I wonder if this is a case of the hotel(s) not knowing how to handle processing an e-card.
Originally Posted by
sammyindc
Best bet is to always call the property ahead of time and ask them if they are "participating" in the gift card either electronic or physical.
Yes, but I can't fault the OP. If he's told that they'll be accepted at Marriott properties, it's the norm to assume that this (probably mainstream) property would accept it. I would have thought the same. And remember, he did contact someone at the property who said yes & was then later told that that person didn't have the authority to say yes.
Originally Posted by
BKKLEE
since accepting the GC gives the prop both immediate and non-commissioned payment it would seem obvious that all props would be accepting the card, however if common sense doesn't prevail then it would seem easy for Marriott GC folks to just publish a list of the few props that do not accept the GCs and desire to await payment and pay commissions..........
Exactly. The list of participating is undoubtedly larger than the list of non-participating, so if there are non-participating properties they should be listed.
FWIW re: credit card holds, etc. I've run into the OP's situation a few times (minus the gift card issue). A lot of travel at dif properties in short period of time, pre-authorized holds (plus the per day incidentals) on each stay, then check-out authorizations, exchange rate didn't help (ie, the US$ was getting its butt kicked), so add exchange rate into the pre-auth/charges, also waiting for reimbursements on expenses for previous trips, and voila, a lot of virtual credit wiped out, even though technically available credit was there.
I didn't have to eat candy bars, but on one 8-day stay I didn't have an option other than to eat at the hotel most of the time since they had pre-authorized the stay plus $100+/day in incidentals (on top of the $500/night which was convention rip-off price) & had tied up my credit line (after the scenario above w/ multiple hotel stays). That might have been one alternative for the OP, presuming his hotel had a restaurant.
Cheers.