Some candid thoughts from a director of rooms
I had a very interesting conversation recently with the Director of Rooms of a Starwood hotel who happened to be driving a shuttle bus. It was a long journey and so I had some time to probe for information...
He said the changeover has not been easy. Marriott brought in all new software and it’s taken ages to get people trained up on it. Their fees have gone up too. He said Sheraton would charge $7,800 a month for a hotel to be part of their system... Marriott charge $14,000! No wonder so many are leaving.
He also said something very interesting about how hotels are reimbursed when points are used. As you know from the Le Méridien NYC court case a few years back, it was revealed how Starwood would reimburse the full Average Daily Rate of a room rate once the occupancy level of the hotel hit 95%.... but Marriott don't.
He said they only reimburse the first 50% of point redeemed rooms... not ALL like Starwood.
So what does that mean? It means for big events when occupancy is high or room rates are high a director of rooms he will only stick on 50% of the rooms to be redeemed and the rest have to be cash rates!
It is not in his interest for any more than 50% of rooms to be on points as they are not getting properly recompensed.
Isn't that ridiculous?
So there is far fewer availability for members because of this rule because hotels are basically disincentivized from doing so.
He said during the changeover their system was down for an entire day and they had to use a manual carbon paper credit card receipt machine!