The people who run the property are/ were Starwood through and through - I am pretty sure the conspiracy theories here are wrong. The games over all inclusive happened once the new Marriott programme basically destroyed the property’s business model (almost all rooms became available at the best value in the entire system) and seeing as the property is managed directly by Marriott i am sure their gambit was proposed by Marriott brass centrally.

In this case I suspect one of two things, which seem about equally likely:
- The new system wasn’t correctly configured, leading to an overbooking
- The owners (I.e. the Dubai Royal Family) have need of some rooms over the Christmas period