gleff

Some folks have been offered up to 4 nights at $79.

Others have been offered to have their dates moved to the 12/20-12/25 period and given up to 3 nights... and there was a reported case of having an offer to move the stay to that period but only for 1 night.

Is there a pattern to explain the different treatment?

dhuey

Congrats to those who got this amazing rate. Le Parker Meridien is a terrific 4* hotel in a great location.

skywalkerLAX

"Dear Ms Lachmeyer,

thanks for your information regarding my future hotel stay at the Parker Meridien New York.

Since I already made reservations with American Airlines for air travel to New York LGA, which are non-refundable, I can obviously not accept your statement like this.

I will be glad to cancel my reservation if you reimburse me for my cancellation of the airfare, otherwise I expect you to honor the rate since it was a regular offer on your website and not a discounted special. The ticketfare is 397,60 USD. Of course I will provide you with the necessary reciept in case you accept this offer.

I would appreciate if you could let me know within the next days. In case you don´t consider to accept any of my suggestions please provide me with
the contact information of your legal department.

Hopefully you see my disappointment as reason for my actions.

Kind regards,

skywalkerLAX"

GUWonder

It seems like the longest number of days in a single reservation held by an individual was the maximum number of nights they are trying to sell now under this offer.

The moving of dates has a different pattern. I am curious still if it is based on status of account holder, past stay history at the same property, or simply depending on what days are covered by the reservations (i.e., original reservations on days where the property would dump inventory on hotels.com/priceline/hotwire or otherwise not expect to have as high occupancy as on some other days).

cko64

I booked eight nights from Dec. 24 - Jan. 1.

I was offered 5 nights from Dec. 20 - 25 for the cost of $79. For other dates, it would be $395.

Also, no mention of # of person(s) in the room and no SET/Corporate Rate.

chrisny2

I agree. Starwood only owns 85 hotels, and manages 426 more. There are 360 "independently owned and operated" franchised hotels (including the Parker Meridien). Even though this hotel doesn't participate in the SPG program, Starwood still has control over its licensees and their reservations/legal procedures for (at a minimum) reservations booked through Starwood.

From Starwood Investor Relations :

jef7

Anybody else who had booked this rate and still have not received any e-mails?

I did and I still have not received any e-mails. I take this as a continued indication that it's good to go.

trekkie

This is exactly my point and contrary to what william saunders has replied to my post, i have on very good authority to believe what i typed earlier is true. It is further obvious that replies have been tailored specifically to address Fters. Discussion of set rate codes, spg website were on the forum only recently and the replies had these terms on the replies.

as other posters have requested, it would be only appropriate to shift the entire thread to starwood preferred guest forum as discussions are mainly on spg. Can other Fters be kind enough to post "they request for this forum to be in spg."

sts603

A couple questions...

I booked reservations for myself and a friend. I may not use mine but he may use his. They are clearly under his full legal name. However, I placed my credit card in there as I couldn't call him at the time to get his. What is the stipulation in her note regarding must use the credit card supplied? This seems a little strange. I can understand the name thing (like almost every error of this type) but people hold on one credit card and pay differently all of the time (with no malicious intent). Has anyone followed up on this point? Will they allow him to charge my credit card without me being there?

Also, I was offered 4 nights between 12/20 and 12/25. Can I use fewer than 4 (e.g. stay 12/21-12/23 at $79 per night)?

skywalkerLAX

Do I assume wrong when I say that they offer you days around christmas eve because they think people are not that willing to travel short before christmas (for whatever reason) ?

In my personal case I slept over it this night and I consider it wouldnt make any difference to me. No intentions or special plans on christmas this year so I even could use their offer as long as AA rebooks me. Of course I would pursue them to pay for it. I wait for a response from the hotel as they said they would "further investigate my reservation after providing the flight details".

GUWonder

So Starwood and the hotel are trying to pack as many of these stays as possible into the 12/20-12/25 period and pushing for ways to separate named guests from their bookings on these rates.

GUWonder

This issue goes beyond just this hotel deal -- it goes into how Starwood deals with these deals. There have been several such situations involving Starwood and Starwood subjects its customers to the hotel's games while not standing up for all of its customers in obvious ways by firmly standing by the denominated rate representations on Starwood's website.

Starwood seems to have this type of issue reoccuring and the inconsistency in handling the matters does not inspire confidence that Starwood stands by bookings (and rate details) made on websites where the brand is Starwood's iproperty.

When there is a customer service issue at Starwood's properties, including problems with reservations, Starwood ought to go up to bat for its customers by standing by the reservation details made on a site that Starwood controls or has a material interest in. Unfortunately Starwood seems unwilling to fix issues on their end while continuing to subject customers to the ambiguity of rates advertised and booked on its various affiliate websites.

idealflyer

What a fiasco, I hope Starwood reconsiders their license for Le Meridien. There are already enough great properties in NY for Starwood anyways. What's the point of not allowing to earn or redeem points and who knows if they will treat SPG Preferred elites with any distinction.

Why couldn't they just honor the rate < Dec. 20? If the hotel sold say 1000 rooms for $79, the only real lost revenue is the opportunity cost of not being to sell rooms for >$300. It is not like we overbooked the rate, Starwood's website allocated certain number of rooms at this price which looked like it sold it quickly.

So if 1000 x $79 = $79000 potential revenue lost, they would have to sell 263 rooms at $300 to make same amount, not very likely considering week before Christmas is slow everywhere for business travelers. Not to mention all the staff time and resources used fielding questions and following up with problems arising such as travel plans to/from NY (i.e. tollfree calls, letters, and maybe legal fees involved) What was this hotel thinking? So what do they prefer to have 30% occupancy at a higher rate, or be near full occupancy at 1/4 the rate but with more guests buying hotel services through dining, spa and concierge?

[I]Forest Gump voice[I] "I ain't good with math"

flyerwife

I received a personal phone call from someone at LeMeridien today. Did anyone else?

GUWonder

And what did they say to you or voicemail (if anything)?