Originally Posted by
margarita girl
Good luck! A friend of mine sent me this after trying to use a gift card at a Marriott hotel:
"By the way I dropped off the gift certs at the front desk and told them to process them as a deposit on my account.
The next day they called to say they didn’t know how to use them, and I said OK that’s fine I will take 1 night free in the hotel and give me back the certs and I will use them in the next hotel.
GUESS what, they learned how to use them."
Try that in Germany or Japan or Thailand and you will know it is not going to work.
Their job is to take what you owe them in a form of payment that they can operate, you give them something that they can accept as payment they won't let you go. The hotels I stayed at don't even believe in the card on profile and insisted that I need to swipe the card at check in. Even if you are manage to leave and they will still charge you in full with the card they swiped.
It's as simple as that and last time when they refused to process the GC (no one knows how to process it there at that time and they refused to do it at another time unless we pay upfront so they can refund us if it goes through) we had to pay with our card to be able to leave - that was Marriott Hamburg. We didn't do the GC because refunding the card with forex might make us losing more $ due to exchange rate fluctuations and føtex fees x2.
I was really upset and complained to corporate and the next time I stayed at Hamburg Renaissance I had to write to a particular person in advance and tell her my check in date and when I check in I had to hand in my GC for them to process and get it back when I check out.
This is just a pure ordeal and I gave up.