Originally Posted by
dulciusexasperis
Yes, but the point is pdx1M, the OP did find himself in the middle of a finger pointing exercise. The only way to have eliminated that was by booking directly with the hotel. Whether there is as much chance of the FDA getting it wrong or not would then not have mattered. There would still be only 1 person to deal with, the FDA. It is booking with the Central Reservation system that allowed the possibility of being ping ponged between two people to exist.
Originally Posted by
dulciusexasperis
So it does make a difference who you book with if the reservation gets corrupted. One allows them to ping pong and the other does not. There is no point in saying "it isn't up to the customer to stand in the middle of a finger pointing exercise". The fact is, that is where the OP found himself and that possibility only existed because he booked with Central Reservations.
One more time - you are acting like there is one person at the front desk who answered the call to make the reservation and that they would have remembered the OP or whoever was at question. You call the hotel and you talk to someone in the front desk or front office and they take your reservation and all they do is enter it into the system.
(Actually in a lot of cases you call and the answerer says "sure - let me transfer you to our reservations clerk" and just guess where that clerk actually is. Often they are in central reservations with a transfer code on the phone system that identifies the property from which the transfer is coming so that they can act local and avoid asking you where you want to stay). You show up hours or days later and the FDA says "I don't see a valid reservation". At that point it makes no difference who put the reservation in the system, and if, in fact, the reservation isn't showing then they won't even know (I'm assuming that like most such systems, Marriott's actually records the id of the agent). You are in the same spot either way and the fact that you got their via one route or the other isn't going to matter much at that point. Compare the other case referenced earlier regarding a Hilton FDA who took reservation and just wrote them down. Were those guests in a better place because of who they had called? I understand, truly, that you feel better talking to a local hotel agent to make a reservation. But you are kidding yourself if you think that it will make any difference if the proverbial *#&$ hits the rotating ventilation device. But enough - I certainly hope nothing like this ever bites you and indeed it is very rare that stuff gets screwed up.