Originally Posted by
GUWonder
For Marriott award stays, the hotels don't get paid in points. Marriott pays/settles with the the property using government-issued currency and not the funny money of Marriott points. Given the payment structure for award stays, if the lodge fills up enough with regular paid rates, then the lodge should be fine with the award stays as long as Marriott agrees to stick to paying the lodge the going (cash-denominated) rate for the award stay at the time.
Unfortunately, I don't hold up high hopes when it comes to Marriott eating the cost for its doing business the way it does with Marriott loyalty program members. And I expect that eventually Marriott will either have a special (extremely high) point pricing arrangement for all-inclusive type properties or go with a fixed point-per-penny type ratio for rates at such properties and this lodge will end up being a case in point. And not only because of some pressure from property owners about the award night settlement rates/structure for when the occupancy is not high enough to get top billing by the property.
These are all good points. I’m wondering: if Marriott corporate is responsible for compensating the hotel for the points rates and Marriott corporate is obviously aware that these points bookings were made, why would there be any delay in canceling if it was, in fact, a mistake? Even though they can, by policy, cancel if it was a mistake, I’m going to be pretty mad if I book flights and they wait to let me know until a month or two ahead of time that they won’t honor the reservation. I don’t have airline points to book refundable flights and the cash price for refundable is through the roof. I would have been disappointed, but ok, with them canceling as soon as the rates were discovered (the same day) if this was truly a mistake. But I’ll be rethinking my Marriott loyalty if they string us along and refuse to honor the reservations later.