Originally Posted by
margarita girl
You’re very unlucky. I’ve used mine on all continents (except Antartica) with virtually no issues. It’s a bit more of a hassle than paying with a credit card but it does save me 20% (23% in Australia) so totally worth it.
BTW, on the back of the physical cards, it says “can be used at participating properties within Marriott portfolio” but I imagine a rogue property could just say “I’m not participating”. It’s very odd though that they would rather pay the merchant credit card fee.
The property did not know how to use the Renaissance card claiming the system did not recognize it, was not rogue, but ignorant because they used my eGC.
What was funny was that Renaissance at LHR had difficult to process eGC, they wanted a physical GC. The night manager told me they used a different system that they had to send GC info to a company to make payment then get reimbursement. I believe I have posted the weird situation up thread. This could count as a success although a very very work around process, to me it is still a failure.
The properties in both Hong Kong and Macau were rogue properties who did not want to follow procedures to process giftcard but more than happy to use gauging exchange rates "as this was the only way we would process Marriott gift card". Merchant transaction fee is probably just between 1.5 to 2%, not a big deal for a one night stay if you ask me, so that would not be the factor. The factor is they dont want to be bothered to process the gift card but if the guest insists, then fine, we use the foreign currency conversion rate as if you are paying with a foreign currency in cash.
When I was at Perth Westin, they did not know how to process gift card either but they ended up waived the CC surcharge.
While the various offers on Gift Cards save 20% or more, but usually it is just on a what, $300 to $500 transaction. In fact I dont recall seeing $500 spend offer on AMEX cards. I have decided not to be bothered with just 20% discount but this time I have the $120/$300 offer that seems should not be wasted. So I did buy 2x $300, again, Renaissance gift cards. I will try to use one at JWM Macau this Oct. Wish me luck! I will report back the outcome.