I strongly suspect that hotels have no formal record of Your24 requests and so I would be quite surprised if they could reliably tell you if they received an email from your Ambassador or not (unless you happen to talk to someone who was dealing with it).

Quick question - my ambassador used to always leave away messages whenever she was out of office (even if just gone for the night). Have sent two emails (to both her old Starwood and new Marriott address) and not received an out of office message (nor a response from her - although it's only been two days). Is this normal (no out of office message) or is it possible my ambassador is no more?

I tried to use the Your24 program a couple of weeks back. The hotel had no clue what it was; their response was to have me book starting the day before if I wanted to check in at 11AM.

It may be possible she is no more, but I think also likely that she is swamped. I finally received a call from my Ambassador on Friday and she told me that they are so backlogged that sometimes, it might take a week or more to respond to things. She expressed frustration of that being the case and said that as a Starrwood Ambassador, she was accustomed to addressing needs right away, but that at this moment in time, it just is taking longer, especially with the Starwood folks trying to ramp up their knowledge of Marriott processes. It would probably be helpful if she had an auto-response explaining that for now, a response will take longer.

Your24 is the most useless benefit. I'm surprised they even have it. All it does it lead to missed expectations. This is one area where I would rather they just say "top priority for early check-in" rather than create a false guarantee that is never approved.

Let me guess, a legacy MR property? Did you go through your Ambassador? Not surprised a FDC not being informed. Curious what they would have done if it was approved and you showed up at 11am? The only issue with their advice, although technically correct for members without the Your24 benefit, I would expect the property to process you as a no show before your arrival and possibly cancel the rest of your rez.

Fair enough - I've been trying not to bother her ever since the merger - this is the first time I've emailed her. Here's to hoping she's still around!

Indeed; a legacy MR property, albeit quite new. I did not go through my Ambassador because I did not have one at that time. I mentioned Your24 to the front desk manager a few times, stating that I did not yet have an Ambassador assigned but wished to use it. She just simply did not know what it was and so did not agree to guarantee anything before standard check-in time, and I dropped it. Maybe part of the lack of knowledge is due to the hotel still being new-ish still perhaps. In any case, I booked for starting the day before as she suggested, then later thought that was ridiculous, so I changed the booking to the day I actually wished to check in, and I DID show up at 11 AM! Not a word was said about being there too early to check in. They made a big deal about my being LPP (as if I had just achieved the status, but I was grandfathered in) and the manager came out to greet me personally. Still no mention of Your24, but judging from their recognition of LPP, I think they were just trying to make it a good stay for us, and indeed, we did appreciate it.

its actually a great benefit....i've lost count of the number of times i've been able to keep the room till late in the evening because i checked in late in the evening the previous day....my most recent your24 request let me keep the room till 11pm at night as my flight was at 2am....if it was not for your24 then i would have either had to vacate the room at 4pm of pay for an extra night....

that's not how your24 request works....a request has to be sent to the hotel 24 hours before you check-in with your requested check-in & check-out times....now you can't request it yourself as it can only be done through an ambassador....

I have some sense that Ambassador's aren't always "calling" or "emailing" the property in the way we ordinarily think of. I think they may be sending message to the hotel or adding remarks/flags to a reservation via the internal reservations system. That doesn't mean they don't actually call on occasion (I know mine has done so at least once).