Just here to ask if my issue is something I'm likely to receive any compensation for, and if possibly so, how I should proceed.

I serve on the board for a non-profit organization that provides leadership opportunities for young people. We have an annual convention in a metropolitan area that attracts several hundred people, the vast majority of whom stay at our conference hotel (a Sheraton property). We have been using this hotel for about 20 years. Not that I am personally known to them, but I have been on our board for about that long and have stayed there each year.

Last week during our conference, I arrived at about 11:00 a.m. and was given keys to our room by the board member who oversees that task at about 2:00 p.m. I was very busy all afternoon with my conference responsibilities. My husband had dropped me off and then he ran errands until about 5:00 that afternoon. When he arrived, I gave him his key in the hotel lobby. He ended up assisting some students, etc., and he and I didn't see each other again until about 9:30 that evening.

At about 7:00 p.m., I was finally able to run up to our room for the first time, and it appeared that my husband had already made a quick stop in the room to shower, probably watch a little March Madness from the bed, iron something, and make a cup of coffee. It appeared that he had been eating some chocolate trail mix in the bed as there were some flecks of chocolate on my side.

The next morning, he asked, "So why did you use both towels yesterday and leave them on the bathroom floor?" I told him I hadn't showered at all, and that's when we realized that we each assumed the other had been in the room at some point to freshen up / relax for a few minutes and had mussed things up... when in reality, our room had never been cleaned. We had slept in a dirty bed and likely been using dirty glasses to haul water to the coffee pot that we believed had been used by each other. We had no fresh towels and I haven't had the stomach to ask my husband if he had picked up one of what he thought were my dirty towels from the floor to dry himself after his shower. :-/

I reached out to our group's hotel liaison to let her know what had happened and to ask about some form of compensation. She said she would ask her manager. She returned later with this message: "What we are able to offer you is our sincerest gratitude for taking the time to share your experience with us so that we can improve our processes." I asked, "And that is all?" She enthusiastically pushed the value of their gratitude as though that was worth anything to me.

Our board members were all extremely busy running our conference. Not only did I not have the luxury of time to press the matter with a manager, but I was not going to push this onto our extremely busy hotel-tasked board member to remedy in that moment. He had bigger things to troubleshoot than my hotel problem.

FWIW, our rooms were around $180/night + parking, and I was there one night. I feel like we paid the Clean Room With Clean Towels rate, not the Dirty Room rate.

If I reach out to their manager, does anyone have a recommendation about whether this should be done via email or over the phone? Is the local manager my best bet? And what compensation would be fair? Bonvoy points? A partial refund?

Thanks for any insight or guidance!

ETA: My husband and I occasionally stay at Marriott properties, but I tend to book the best deal I can find through the Chase portal w/my Chase Reserve to get 10x the points. Sometimes that's a Marriott... but not something I get to build up Bonvoy points with. Unless they gave enough points for a free night with them, which I would happily use, I would likely transfer them to our preferred airline.