MSPeconomist

codesinvan

Same for me. I have been wanting to book Night & Flight Packages and have called 3-4 times. Each time I gave up before getting an agent. One time was on hold for 1 hour.

RogerD408

Being under two months before the new program is due out, it may be too late for a proposed change in the system. I'd suggest a new new choice for callers: Those with questions regarding their account and not something that will have a revenue impact on Marriott, press 8, where your call will repeatedly be cycled to the end of the queue and only answered after all other calls have been addressed. Eight was specifically chosen since if you lay it on its side looks like infinity.

Yes, this is meant as a joke, but I can see where those that have current business to discuss might like it.

garkster

Update: Well, it took 23 days, but on June 21st I actually got a response from an "Internet Correspondence Specialist" with an apology and telling me that the Platinum arrival gift had been credited (which it has).

Best of all, I didn't waste one minute of time on the phone. And on the return stay the hotel got it right so the hotel won't go on my list of serial offenders..

mh3265a

Before my recent stay in Singapore at the JW Marriott I got a weird email that looked like a possible phishing attempt. I forwarded the email to the Marriott Rewards email I have for Platinums. I got a response nearly a week and a half AFTER my stay had been completed. Not acceptable. I've never had these types of issues with SPG.

rylan

I'm running 2-3 weeks for a response from submitting a question or issue to the 'customer service' dept. Very poor, especially considering it used to be within a couple days I'd get a response.

Missing stay requests or missing points are running 1-2 weeks, which also appear to be a regular occurrence now.

pqflyer

I need to adjust a reservation, so I called the Marriott elite line. I was on hold for more than thirty minutes --- with many, many "An associate will be with you momentarily" messages. I was doing other work at my computer, so I just kept the line open. But finally I had to conclude that no one was ever going to talk to me. I'm not used to this kind of non-service from Marriott. Disappointing.

pinniped

As we all know, Marriott customer service is a raging garbage fire right now. Those of us who have stayed with Marriott for 20 years know that throughout most of its history, this has not been the case. Regardless of your elite tier, you could phone Marriott when you needed to make or change a reservation, redeem a Travel Package, get support for a problem, whatever. They have historically been pretty good.

My question is: has Marriott publicly acknowledged that this is a huge problem right now, and have they given any indication that fixing it will be a post-merger priority? Theoretically, they'd have a combined support team that should immediately make *some* things better (as SPG is not an equally huge mess right now), but it seems more systemic than that. It's not like people redeeming Travel Packages or asking questions about the merger are solely responsible for breaking the entire system.

I don't expect to have reasons to call Marriott after the merger, but if I do I'd like to know that it will be possible. Right now, it is not except for issues so extreme and critical that I'm willing to wait on hold for a long time.

CPRich

No .

joshua362

Solely from reading here, it sounds like at least the first level of telephones has gone to India presumably as a cost saving measure (merger "synergies" used to justify the deal for those in M&A)

MSPeconomist

IAHFlyBoi

Was on the phone with Marriott Reservations for 37 min and hung up, and decided to try my luck with the app chat...the hotel chat took another 15+ min to respond. At this juncture, there's no point in calling or emailing, I've emailed Marriott 2x and the emails seem to be going into a black hole as well.

Baze

If this is a raging garbage fire what does that make the United/Continental merger a while back? The apocalypse? Armageddon?

3Cforme

There are some bad news things that hotels will publicize immediately:

- Our records have been hacked and your credit card is at risk

- A worker in our kitchen has tested positive for Hepatitis A and everybody who dined with us between xx/xx/xx and xx/xx/xx is at risk and should be tested

- A hurricane came through and we're going to be closed for months


Delays in answering phones and email? I doubt it. It's a problem neither urgent nor acute. Let's hope lots of people have been in training and they're ready to hit the ground running on Day 1 (whenever that may be).

pinniped

That merger was exactly what I expected from those two horrible companies.

The thing here is that it's a departure from the way Marriott once handled things. It was once competent. Now it is not. It's an elephant in the room at this point. Are they going to fix it? Or are they okay being United?

The answer may be "our hotels are so full no matter what. We now dominate the market so much that we can be United, because you have no choice in the matter except Hilton, and we suck less than they do." I just wish they'd go ahead and say it if that's the case. Could be the basis of a new ad campaign...