Originally Posted by
boolean64
The hotel is clearly aware of what they are trying to pull and have decided they can get away with it. Further conversations with them seem unlikely to yield any fruit. Lurkers may be able to help but I'll put money down that the threat of consumer protection agency action is the only thing that will get the result you want...and the threat might not even work...you might need to actually get them involved. I wouldn't even waste time threatening...i'd get the ball rolling on the consumer protection agency now to maximize chances it is resolved before Dec 25.
Also, i don't understand why Marriott Corporate should be on the hook for anything here. This is all about the hotel honoring their confirmed reservations. If they got screwed by formula 1 changing the date, that's not on the guest or marriott. Maybe for the points but i think based on occupancy the hotel will be OK with the points reservation anyway.
I agree that the only chance of anything happening to help the two members is regulatory intervention but doubt that the property owners haven't taken this into account. I would recommend that they both make alternate arrangements for the eventuality that this doesn't get resolved in their favor.
That said, for the points booking I would suggest that it should be Marriott who is on the hook. At least in the days of Starwood the hotel was reimbursed based on the occupancy and the average price of rooms for that night or something similar. So in this case I would suggest that what should be happening is that Marriott should be paying the hotel a higher rate for the points booking for that night, rather than the hotel coming after the guest for the delta.
Of course it all comes down to the actual contract and procedures that Marriott Bonvoy has with the hotels, but maybe they have a cap on compensation and this goes above it.