Just still really at a loss on this one as to why someone would even think that a line in the T&Cs like that would be necessary. I've been racking my brain trying to think of any possible way that could get abused and come up completely empty handed. The only thing I can think of is potential credit card fraud, but in my case at least, they were perfectly happy to let me check in as it stood, so they're willing to take the money, just saying I won't accrue points / elite nights. On third party bookings like Expedia, etc. that's quite easily justified and can understand, they have to pay a quite large commission to those companies... this one I can't understand any justification in the least bit since it's booked on Marriott.com under my name and profile.

I won't really know anything until the end of next week how it turns out. Last year around this same time someone at the hotel had to manually process it after checking out, but they are quite insistent that this time they can't do it. All I can see for now is that my Bonvoy profile says stay in progress.

Can you imagine if airlines tried to pull that? Only the ticket purchaser and credit card holder can accrue miles... LOL. Would certainly be a lot less elites flying.