Originally Posted by
CJKatl
Why would anyone do this to the point that he/she "can't tell you how many times I have checked in left and never went to my room..."? It's one thing for that rare occasion when someone wants a last bonus night, 75th annual night or the like, but to pay your own money over and over again just to get points doesn't make economic sense.
My take is Marriott does not want to be a party in a scheme where someone does not stay in a room but charges the room to an employer just to convert the employer's money into personal points. By ensuring the person stays in the room Marriott helps employers stop this type of scheme and maintains the integrity of MR. If Marriott were to allow people to charge rooms remotely without staying in them employers would likely question whether MR is an honest program in which they should allow employees to participate. It is one thing to reward the decision to stay for business nights where the stay is a necessary business expense. It is another to allow points for fake stays, thus aiding and abetting nothing but conversion of business funds to personal points. Granted, most people are honest and good shepherds of employer resources, but there are a few that might try to scheme business money for personal use who would destroy it for the rest of us. Of course those people would be prosecuted, but the taint on the program could not be undone, so it makes sense that Marriott puts up roadblocks to keep integrity and give businesses assurance when allowing workers to participate in MR.
While hotels cannot and should not do bed checks, Marriott is at least giving employers the confidence that an employee actually checked into a hotel. While if someone wants to waste their own money on a fake stay there might not be a reason for Marriott to care, MR is really set up for Marriott to have business people steer business money that's going to be spent anyway towards Marriott. Non-business stays are the smaller amount here.
While that might make sense, it seems a bit far-fetched to me. An employee running such a scheme should be detected fairly quickly, especially if he/she is doing it with any frequency. There would be no other evidence of the trip (e.g., meal receipts) and someone should be paying enough attention to the employee's work to realize that the trip never happened.
My guess is that they would prefer to resell the room in case of a no-show. This enables them to collect the first night's charge and sell the room to a high-paying walkup customer.