Originally Posted by
Kacee
Well they are certainly delivering on that promise.
My thoughts exactly.
Originally Posted by
Gadot
from aruba ritz room for points; rate rules
Holding Your Reservation
- We will need a credit card prepayment to reserve your room. To ensure that you receive this special rate, we will charge your credit card a prepayment of 728.27 USD when you make your reservation.
Since when are points reservations considered to be prepaid? If this is what they mean, then the hotel should receive the points at the time the award reservation is made.
I can't believe that this is a property that requires ALL reservations to be prepaid, like some cheap all inclusive "resort." So then points reservations shouldn't be required to be prepaid either unless the hotel is offering some special discounted rate on prepaid awarrd reservations that can be chosen at the time of booking (with the usual nonrefundable after 24 hours verbiage revealed at the time of selecting these promo rates.
Originally Posted by
hockeyinsider
You're basically giving the hotel or Marriott (depending on who actually receives the prepayment) an interest-free loan.
Of course. However, I wonder what happens if the hotel goes out of business in the meantime. Unless your credit card company goes to bat for you, I would guess that this would be considered some sort of tertiary unsecured debt.
Originally Posted by
Gadot
you do need id
NO, you do NOT need ID to make a reservation, just to check in.
Originally Posted by
Often1
For all the complaining, the description of the business situation, e.g. hedge fund trying to sell into REIT, explains this. The property wants and needs to generate short-term cash revenue. Whether that does future brand damage is irrelevant as the owners do not care about whether you or others return next year. Thus, whether other properties grant various courtesies is not helpful here because this one will not.
That gamble may or may not pay off. If the property can be sold, it will be for the new owners to establish a new strategy. If the place cannot be sold at an acceptable price, the current owner is stuck with the brand damage.
People make business judgments every day.
That brings one to hedging onerous conditions oneself. The notion that there is simply "travel insurance" is a naive approach. Most throwaway policies which come attached to some other product such as a CC, do not cover expensive or outlier situations. Thus, given what is on the line, it pays to read your policy carefully and to purchase insurance to cover the risk you are taking or to absorb the risk yourself. Either approach is fine so long as you understand it.
However, most customers don't follow the details of hotel ownership, so the new owners will be stuck with the brand damage being done now. I hope they do their due diligence and realize that they should offer a reduced price or alternatively plan to completely rename/rebrand the property if they do purchase it (and pay the associated expenses to do so).
Originally Posted by
Kacee
It does not explain Marriott allowing an increasing number properties to require cash prepayment on award stays, combined with a 60 day (or longer cancellation policy).
Of all the horrible changes in the program, this is the one that if it continues to spread would absolutely cause me to move my business to another program. It basically makes points unusable for those of us who need flexibility in our travel plans.
I can understand that very very very very very few properties (Maldives for example but not Colorado) may be justified in having a 30 day or longer cancellation deadline. For these few exceptional cases, that's OK if the policy is fully and clearly disclosed when one begins a search and again (with the amount of loss stated) at the time of booking, but it's not something that some random normal hotel should be free to impose at will and especially without clearly disclosed terms.