Originally Posted by
pinniped
The 110 million tickets seems implausible. Whether it was misunderstanding by the original author of the blog or he/she was using hyperbole to make a point, it seems rather silly.
If there are 110 million members in the system, I bet 75% of them are basically inactive for reasons unrelated to the merger: they simply aren't traveling or were only an infrequent Marriott guest to begin with. Of the 30-40 million "regulars", 90+% of them have had no issues because they haven't really tried to do anything with the program.
That still leaves the possibility that there are millions, plural, of people with problems, and there's no question that this merger is a raging tire fire that is showing no signs of putting itself out anytime soon.
So it's still really, really bad and I still believe this is Marriott's "New Coke" moment, but I can't fathom how it can be 110 million open tickets. If it's a million, that's freaking horrible and people need to be fired. 110 million just doesn't make sense.
Maybe... but before August, excluding a few missing stays that had to applied, I never had an open case with Marriott in 24 years. Since August 17th when I tried to upgrade two 7 night travel certs to cat 9 before the merge and had an incompetent CSR who couldn't/wouldn't complete the task I've had multiple. If you count the # of times I emailed my Ambassador and the general ambassador line, called my ambassador and the general ambassador line and called the regular CS line in the US and Ireland this one issue could account for at least 20 touches. I've had two other issues that had to be escalated as well. I'm fortunate that all of my issues got sorted out and I've made my peace but I moved 40 nights from September - February (until my issues were resolved) and it will probably cost me Ambassador next year. I'm going to check tomorrow but I believe my company counts each touch even if it is the same issue. If that's the case for Marriott 110 million could be accurate. On some of my early email submissions from August (post merger) I didn't receive any contact until November... I also remember the many people claiming being on hold for hours in August, September and October...
Also, and maybe more accurately it is probably that 110 million tickets have been opened since August vs there are currently 110 million tickets open. Or maybe more accurately I suspect there have been 110 million customer contacts that are not reservation based but complaint based...