Originally Posted by
MSPeconomist
The hotel nevertheless gains if it can sell your room to someone else at a high enough rate. It's certainly true during special events when rack rates prevail. In such cases, what the Ultimate Reservation Guarantee does is to incentivize the hotel to walk someone other than a Plat+ if possible, but the hotel can still walk you and can still gain from doing so.
I get there's a potential arbitrage incentive for the hotel. Regarding your first point--what really stops a hotel from doing this to anyone at any time? There must be something, probably corporate policy and the "contract" of the reservation itself, or it would be a free-for-all auction in the hotel lobby every night! If I am able to snag a discounted rate during a high-demand window because I booked early, I do expect them to honor it--and they always have. This has very often been the case when it's very clear the hotel is sold-out; maybe being Platinum is the difference for me, but I'd surely remember if there were a lot of very irate customers getting walked because the hotel decided to sell their rooms at a higher prevailing rate even with reservations in-hand... I do wonder also if Marriott corporate might frown upon a corporate or franchise property that did this to its customers frequently or in a pattern centered around periods where high-rates prevail (especially the loyalty program's elites or otherwise highest spenders, but really it should apply to any customer). It would certainly be more understandable in the event a guest made no attempt whatever to notify the property they were definitely coming and would be a very late evening/early morning arrival. If a guest goes the extra mile to ensure the hotel knows they're coming late and then gets walked...that should be a pretty severe penalty to the property (if you can prove it...).
Depending on the property/brand and your status, the Ultimate Reservation Guarantee is now $200/100 cash and 90K points--not sure what the conversion for points-to-$ is for a hotel...even at $0.001 per point that's $90 (could it be even less than that?). Maybe, in the case of a Platinum/Titanium/Ambassador at a FS property $200, the cash equivalent of 90K points, and the "hit" to loyalty is worth it to take your money as a no-show and sell the room out from you for a tidy profit--and maybe it's not. It's certainly not something I'd allow any property more than one opportunity to do to me; and also certainly not something about which I wouldn't go to great lengths to highlight with Marriott corporate and other frequent travelers via a plethora of means.
In any case, we're a bit OT...
cheers!