Just had a frustrating gift card experience, but with patience, it all worked out. I’m sharing the story in case it can help out someone else.

I had a 3 night stay booked at a Marriott hotel, and due to a flight delay, I only arrived on the 2nd morning. One of my friends who happened to be in same city as me offered to check in and stay in my room for that first night. I said sure. He also offered to pay for that night on his credit card to keep things simple and I agreed.

I was leaving the hotel at 06:30 on the 3rd morning, so the day before I went to front desk to pay for the last 2 nights with one of my few remaining gift cards. (Amex, where are you?) It turns out there’s only one person at the hotel who knows how to process gift cards and he wasn’t in that day (even though it was a weekday). FD Agent assured me that they’d do it the next morning after my departure. Perfect!

The next day, I see that my card has been charged for 3 nights instead of 2. Aargh! I emailed FD Mgr about the error and asked her to refund 1 night to my gift card. She apologized and said they couldn’t refund my gift card but offered to refund my friend’s credit card or give me a credit that could only be used at their hotel. I didn’t want either of those! I wrote back and said gift card refunds were possible, and she could call CS at 800-442-6132 (this number is in the wiki) if she needed assistance in how to do this. 30 mins later it was fixed and refund for 1 night was posted to my gift card. Whew!

(It’s not usually this difficult. Thankfully, FD Agent was very helpful and willing to work with me.)