Originally Posted by A Traveller
I'll have to disagree there.
A "publicly listed rate" is one anyone, regardless of private memberships with any particular organizations, can look up and have booked for themselves.
True. However, one can pull up many rates for private organizations by putting in a promotion code, or in the case of AAA rates, by checking the box that is supplied. You are incorrect, however, as a senior rate does not relate to any private organization, whatsoever. It only relates to one's age.
Originally Posted by A Traveller
AAA (and AARP, and companies that have the CORP discount), are private organizations. You must enter in the fact of your membership with one of those private organizations when booking the reservation, otherwise you won't get it.
That is correct, but that does not make a rate that may pertain to a private organization not publicly listed. As noted above, the AAA rates are publicly listed on the website. Moreover, that argument is unpersuasive because there no longer is an AARP rate at Marriott hotels, Marriott having done away with same and substituting in it's stead, a single check box if you are a senior, 62 years or over. Entitlement to same does not require any membership in any private organization. Therefore, it's having been publicly listed on the Marriott website without requrirng membership in any organziation, argues in favor that, at the very least, the AAA rate should be treated in a similar manner.
Originally Posted by A Traveller
All hotels are required to verify each guest's membership in those private organizations when they check in (although as we all know, that part doesn't always happen, but just because that one part doesn't happen in all instances, doesn't mean the rate is public).
Again, the better reasoned course is that if Marriott intended to mean that a membership in a "private organization" disqualified one from using a rate provided to members of same, and that such rates are not utilizable in tandem with an EEO cert, then Marriott could have very easily, and clearly, I might add, simply have placed the following language on the back of the EEO cert:
Rate discounts due to membership in private organizations are not usable with an EEO cert.
rather than your strained interpretation, or Marriott's strained definition, that the term "publicly listed rate", should not be given it's common sense meaning of including all rates that are "publicly listed" on the Marriott website.
It makes much more sense, and is far easier to understand for the layman who is encouraged to book their rates online, that common sense meanings of terms are used. Marriott's apparent decision to define -- without any rationale or notice -- that a "publicly listed rate" does not include those rates for which membership credentials may be required, fails this test miserably. As such, a decent argument may be interposed that Marriott should be charged as employing a deceptive trade practice, especially while encouraging increased use of its publicly available website in order to make one's hotel reservations.