We had stayed in a number of Marriott hotels and used Marriott gift cards. Most don't seem to know how to redeem Marriott GCs.

At Sheraton Four Point Edmundston (Sept/2021) a lady from Accounting came to frontdesk, took my GCs to photocopy and took down other info, and said she will figure out and let me know. (And put hold on my CC) A few days later she eventually did redeem and emailed me the transaction records.

In Le Meridien Panama (March/2022), the lady in front desk didn't know what to do and called a lady in Accounting, to take my 3 GCs. I explained the balances on the 3 cards (I wrote them on cards) and how there should be some balance left on the last GC, to return to me. Later that night I came back and the frontdesk lady told me I have a negative balance, it turned out the Accounting lady redeemed everything. I said they should've just redeem what I owed, not everything. She said I can spend the balance in the hotel. I asked they just return a GC with the balance to me when I check out next morning. Next morning the frontdesk did not have a GC for me, and no answer, and Accounting lady not in. I had to leave and asked they contact me to return the balance to me. They never did.

At Westin San Diego (few days ago), I used a GC to pay the resort fee + breakfast upgrade (Plat gets continental and need to pay more fore buffet). My wife and I used Free-night-voucher for one night each, so I had to pay separately for each night. The first time the lady took out a binder, and eventually figured out what to do and even gave me a printed transaction history with the balance remaining in both USD and Cad. The 2nd day, another lady didn't know what to do, took my GC to a different office. Later came back to say it's redeemed, but didn't know the balance on the GC or how to get it.

Marriott needs to change their system to be like most stores, to tap or swipe a GC then enter the redemption amount. Some hotel staff actually asked me to do that (tap or swipe), then found out it doesn't work. Before the system change, Marriott needs to train the staff better, with consistent instructions on what to do.