Originally Posted by
nichojo
If this would have happened 2 months ago, sure, this argument would hold more merit than what I give it now.
We're not talking about my next reservation to the Hampton Inn in Bum-F, OH being canceled and me having to rebook to a hotel down the road. This is a planned trip to another country that was canceled what looks like weeks away.
In my opinion Marriott showed incredible negligence by waiting this long to cancel the stay. SURELY a deal like this didn't just crop up, get negotiated, and seal in a matter of days.
Overall it's a crummy situation and IMO giving the OP $500 and "sorry" < 1 month away from the planned trip is crappy business practice and not acceptable.
Actually, yes, the deal to sell this hotel may well have just crop up and get negotiated, and Marriott found out after the fact, because Marriott probably does not own the hotel, and may well have had no part in the negotiations to sell it. Even if Marriott did know in advance that the hotel was for sale, the hotel might have been on the market for months or years, and all of a sudden a deal came together, that is just how Real Estate works, whether residential or commercial. Take it from me, who was in the Real Estate business as a REALTOR, broker, developer, brokerage owner, investor, commercial property manager, etc. for 25 years. You would be surprised how quickly a deal can come together. It might have been as simple as the seller of the hotel was asking $60 million, there was a standing offer of $50 million from a buyer, and when the seller finally got sick of waiting, took the standing offer and ran. The due diligence might have been done 6 or 12 months ago, only needed to be re-verified, and a closing scheduled, bing, bang, bam, as simple as that. It could even have been a lender foreclosure, or similar, which in Jamaica might go a lot differently than it does in the USA. You just never know!