Two Facts:

1. Basic front desk 101 training with Marriott, Hilton, etc. is that you do not take credit card information over the phone at the property level for anything. You either need the card to be present via insertion or tap or you need some type authorization/usage form filled out by the card holder.

Sure, some properties and/or agents will shortcut this but they are very much not suppose to per the parent company and primarily Visa, Mastercard and Amex who are the ones that basically write the rule book for merchants/transactions.

2. That form is only getting to/from the property two ways. Fax or email.

While this may seem ridiculous to you, this goes on at probably every chain hotel property on planet earth. Every hotel I have worked at with Marriott and Hilton for 20+ years collects hundreds if not thousands of emails/faxes a year with these forms.

The property I work at now has a six inch binder in the back office of nothing but these forms that needs to get emptied into a larger storage box quarterly because after three months the binder is filled with them.

That rep. did exactly what the parent company teaches you to do and within that realm, they did nothing wrong.