Originally Posted by
writerguyfl
This is just a guess because I never worked at a Marriott property. But, where I did work, frequent guest points weren't awarded until the night audit was audited.
As most people know, every hotel runs a daily procedure to compile the transactions of the day and verify them for accuracy. Although it's called the Night Audit, some hotels actually have a Front Desk representative run the procedure but wait and do the audit part during the day. (It can be difficult to find someone with an aptitude for numbers to work third shift.)
Any hotel that follows standard accounting practices will then have someone audit the night audit to ensure everything is correct. I did that job for about a year under the title of Income Auditor. I verified the figures before entering them into the general ledger. In my hotel, I was the person that signed off on frequent guest points before electronically sending the report to the corporate office to handle distributing those points.
That process of auditing the night audit does not need to be the same day (except at the end of an accounting period). For example, I didn't work weekends in that position. On Monday, I'd audit Friday, Saturday, and Sunday's audit. Smaller hotels are far less likely to have a dedicated Income Auditor. It would be crazy for a small hotel to have the Accounting Manager wait and do a week's worth of audits at once.
That's my guess as to why some hotels are quicker than others in terms of awarding points. But, it's also possible that some hotels are just not doing what is required.
I think the night audit process may make sense. For example, I stayed in a hotel over the weekend and had spend at the restaurant and pool bar. The invoice I received at checkout wasn't current. Among other things, it didn't have additional breakfast spend or pool bar spend from that afternoon. Later in the day, I received an updated invoice by email with the breakfast spend. This morning, I received an "updated and final folio" with the bar spend.
So if I had received credit for the hotel stay today, it would have been inaccurate.