fereke

We recently stayed at the Cadillac (November '19).

No upgrade from the Ocean room we booked (and Best Rate Guarantee'd )

Nice hotel style with some art deco grandeur. Well decorated room, with decent size and confortable amenities. Window and small balcony were oriented like 45 degrees from the shore so half ocean view, half facing neighboring building.
Nice pools, one adult-only. Beach just across the boardwalk from the hotel, beach chairs included in the resort fee but only available from 9h30.

We chose breakfast as welcome amenity, full buffet including omelette station, with nice and smiling staff.
Unfortunately, our experience was rather disappointing with other staff. Valet was nowhere to be seen when we arrived - it was raining. Bellboy was also waiting inside and tried to grab our luggage once we had already climbed the stairs. Uninterested pool bar/restaurant staff.

As titanium member, I asked for a 2pm late checkout but was only granted 12pm (instead of 11am) despite a seemingly low occupancy on the upcoming Sunday night (lots of rooms available to book at low same-day prices). Not offered to store luggage and use a changing room to enjoy the beach until 2pm.
In addition, valet took almost 45 minutes the car back so we left with a bitter taste, even though the hard product was nice.

friedablass

Does anyone have an email address for this hotel? I stayed here earlier this week and I just realized that I got hit with a $150 package receipt fee. I have combed their site and do not see anywhere such an outrageous, obnoxious fee would be charged for receiving a FedEx package on my behalf so I'd like to email them about this.

My colleague and I had been in Tampa the previous day and we drove down to Miami. Upon arrival to the hotel, my colleague realized that he had left a small bag with all his personal stuff (passport, credit cards, ID, some cash, etc.) at our Tampa office. I immediately called my contact in Tampa to retrieve the bag and we were grateful that it had been left in a safe place and was now in safe hands. Rather than driving 4+ hours to Tampa and then again back to Miami 4+ hours, it made much more sense to overnight the package with FedEx even if that in itself was good and expensive; I just wasn't expecting the hotel to charge me this ridiculous fee .

I've had packages delivered to me at hotels many many times - most of the time I did not get charged a package delivery fee. The few times the hotels wanted to monetize package receipts the fee was $5 or $10 bucks (the latter was at a Disney owned property), which I wouldn't make a big deal paying here either, but again, $150 is totally over the top and I'm really upset.

On a different note, I have to say that we really had a nice stay at this hotel. Booked 2 rooms on points and as Plat they upgraded one to an oceanfront which was nice. Both rooms were nice and big and clean and well appointed. I would definitely recommend this hotel and come back here if the opportunity arises (obviously only if they resolve the matter with the package fee...).

arlflyer

Will be interesting to see how this one shakes out...

Agree that I cannot seem to find any reference to this fee for this property anywhere on the ‘net either. But I did find the interesting backstory on the general phenomenon of high package fees at Miami hotels - basically LatAm travelers ordering high volumes of goods in the states for the purpose of repatriation, with the fee set as a deterrent so the properties aren’t inundated with mass quantities of shipments.

Marriott Bonvoy Lurker

Hi friedablass, the email address for the Cadillac Hotel & Beach Club, Autograph Collection is: [email protected].

Warm regards,

Leanne
Social Media Specialist
[email protected]

​​​​​

friedablass

Hi Leanne,

Thank you for providing this email address. I have attempted to email them but it bounced. I sent you an email about this as well and we can continue having a conversation about this via email.

Thank you for your assistance.

friedablass

Although Leanne has not been in touch with me, earlier today I received a survey link for my stay and in the comments section I wrote to them about my issue.

I received an email just now from the hotel stating that "the $1xx.xx charge in question is your package charge, meaning room rate. We do not charge fees for receiving packages unless it is more than 10 packages received throughout your stay. I hope this clarifies things a bit more for you. I have gone ahead and forwarded you another copy of the folio for you records, and if you would like to compare with your confirmation you will see the $1xx.xx is reflected as the rate of your stay."

I didn't get any updated folio, but that's the least of my problems. The bigger problem is that my room rate was paid with 50k points so there should be no rate of my stay on the folio. The only fee I was supposed to pay was the $35++ resort fee which is a separate item on my folio.

I responded stating the above and forwarded the confirmation email showing points reservation to this person's email. Let's see what happens next.

arlflyer

Ohhh, yes - have seen this language before as well. I think we all presumed from OP that the language in the folio was significantly clear to make it certain that it referred to a fee for receiving a package. Still unfortunate that it isn't resolved though.

emanon256

I wish you luck. I finally gave up on getting plaything back from them after several bogus charges in Dec 2018. I tried in person, e-mail, calling, and then contacting Marriott. Nothing ever. I was out a similar dollar amount for bogus charges. In my case, it was Concierge made arrangements, quoted me a rate, and then charged significantly more twice. Let me know if you get any good contact info.

Jon Maiman

While I am generally very much against using credit card chargebacks as the primary way to settle billing issues, if you exhausted all other options it would have been appropriate in this case. Why didn't you dispute the inappropriate charges with your credit card? If you did dispute it, did your credit card company indicate why they denied it? Lack of documentation? Would be good to know, since credit cards are supposed to provide protection from fraud and this definitely sounds like fraudulent practice by the hotel.

--Jon

emanon256

Chase only allows a dispute within 60 days and I stayed there before a trip, so the clock was ticking. After trying to work with the hotel, and Marriott, it was past the point in time that Chase would allow me to dispute it. I probably should have gone that route earlier, or pushed Chase after the fact, but at the end of the day it was just under $200, and I had wasted enough of my time by then.

friedablass

Actually was resolved already, was pleasantly surprised that it was that easy. I just didn't have a chance to update here, but it was on the agenda.

They responded after the weekend that their was a technical glitch in their system and they did not receive the e-certificate for my points reservation but they looked into it and see it now so I was refunded that "room rate" plus all taxes. The only thing I'm left wondering is that base rooms for that night were going for well over $400++ so why the heck would they have only charged me ~$150++??

Either way, I was relieved to have it sorted out so quickly and the credit is already showing on my card. I actually tried getting them to keep the charge on my card to pay for the room and refund me my 50k points instead , but they said cc charge already refunded. This makes me think they didn't want to own up to this inexcusable "package" charge so they made up some kind of random bogus excuse.

That's a real shame and they should not be allowed to charge someone falsely, not $5, or $50, and certainly not close to $200. I personally wouldn't let it go that easily. If you want you can PM me for the email address of the person that contacted me after the survey.

arlflyer

Excellent to hear that everything turned out well for you!

One hypothesis could have been a negotiated rate code accidentally getting thrown in there. I've only ever seen the "package charge" terminology show up on a folio when using my company's negotiated rate, and there are definitely times when that corporate rate is very significantly below what a property is asking, especially during the highest-demand periods.

patriotPHL1

Stay December '20. Solid property overall - nice pool area and beach access. Daily 4-7pm happy hour at pool bar. Disappointing that under the guise of COVID protocols, they have done away with breakfast benefit for elites, and instead only offered the 1,000 points at check-in. Understand that a full buffet is not practical, but a basic brown bag grab-n-go option, or something of that nature, would be an appropriate compromise.

3 nights, less than $500 all in, rates cheap with travel down.

3 SNA's cleared to the top upgrade category ~48 hours out.

Late check-out was granted till 1pm, was able to check-in early at 11am.

user48640

Just stayed here. I was given a choice of breakfast voucher or points. Chose breakfast, which worked for anything in the restaurant. Both buffet or ala carte. They said it didn't include tax, which I thought was cheap. I complained about the resort fee since some of the things aren't available. I was given a $15 voucher for a free drink each day. General manager is good to deal with but the hotel is very short-staffed. I saw some of the workers doing 12-hour shifts. Housekeeping is provided daily upon request only. In-room amenities removed unless you request them. Supposedly because of COVID but most likely to reduce housekeeping and laundry costs. I had dinner one night in the hotel restaurant, Donna Mare. Food was okay. Service was a little off in part because most of the staff don't seem to speak English as a first language. Also, everything is a little pricey because the hotel imposes a mandatory 20% tip in the lobby bar and both restaurants, which is a bit much if you're just ordering a cocktail. Restaurant manager offered me a free drink if I left a positive TripAdvisor review. That was tacky. I second someone else's comment about happy hour at the poolside restaurant and bar. They sell bottles of Moet & Chandon Imperial champagne at half-off.

patriotPHL1

Similar experience for me (above), less the breakfast benefit. Nice job effectively complaining when resort amenities weren't available - I got nowhere re that or breakfast. Such is life. Nice overall property though.