Heatherphil

I recently stayed at the Courtyard Marriott in Xian (China). I booked it based on its central location in the city, as my husband and I were on holiday and our focus was being near sights and restaurants. The map on the app showed its location within the city walls, as did the map on the hotel's own website.

Imagine our surprise when the taxi dropped us at the hotel and we were out in the middle of absolutely nowhere, nearly 2 hours walk from the tip of the city centre, 20 minutes walk from any public transport, and a 45 minute taxi to the sights of the city.

It turns out the app and website had completely the wrong location of the hotel - they were out by the equivalent of a 40 minute car drive. As a result we spent hours in taxis trying to sightsee, couldn't enjoy the local food like we wanted to on our holiday, couldn't head back to the hotel room in the afternoon for a quick shower between hot summer sightseeing trips (as it would have added hours to our day) and all in all our trip was ruined.

I thought this was egregious false advertising - hotels can charge twice as much for a central location and we would never have booked this hotel had the location been advertised correctly.

I took an immediate screenshot of the incorrect location on the Marriott app, and emailed Marriott Rewards and Marriott International right away. I also tweeted at Marriott International, Marriott Rewards, and the regulation Marriott twitter accounts about our predicament. I tried to communicate the problem with the staff in the hotel but their English was not good and it got hopelessly confusing.

What I wanted was for them to allow us to cancel the booking without charging us and we would book into another, much more central hotel.

I got no help at the time and over two weeks later have had no help and barely an apology from Marriott. No one replied to my tweets, and the only response to my initial emails was truly appalling - it was someone from the Marriott App who told me they had looked and 'as this is the most central Marriott in Xian that is why we show it where it is.' So, um, you show a completely incorrect address that is miles and miles from where it is?

Eventually I wrote a poor review for the hotel on TripAdvisor and this sparked a short email from the hotel amngegemtn acknowledging the false representation on the map and apologising 'if this affected your trip.' That was it. No compensation, no escalation, not even really an acknowledgement that this was straight up lying to us when we booked.

I continued to try to contact the general Marriott rewards account, as I am Gold status. After over two weeks I finally get a response today. It says 'Sorry for the delay. Our records show the hotel has already responded to you.' That was it.

I truly cannot believe how blasé and dissembling Marriott has been I would have expected at least the offer of some extra points, or some small refund (personally I'd like a complete refund, as our trip was ruined) or even just an acknowledgment that this was not a small issue. Imagine if it had been vital for work reasons that we be in a particular location and Marriott advertised somewhere 45 minutes drive away from where it actually was?

What this tells me is I can never trust Marriott again and frankly I would not book with Marriott again - I already cancelled some Marriott bookings in the future.

Incidentally, I just checked the app and the false location is still advertised (I have the screenshot to prove it).

joakgarp

https://goo.gl/maps/AFvEXiLADmN2

Wasn't that hard.

Antarius

The location on Marriott is the same as google maps. Are you saying both are wrong?

EDIT: Yes, they are. See below.

jeanie

If you haven't already, you might try contacting Marriott on Twitter. If you make posts on other social media sights, I would recommend shortening your post. Very few people will read more than 1 or 2 paragraphs. While a long response is a bit cathartic, it won't achieve the goal you want as well a shorter post would.

bitterproffit

Well, both of the reviews on the google map site say that google has it in the wrong location. One even spells out how far it is. So, it does seem more difficult to find out where it actually is.

bitterproffit

Both reviews on the google map site say it is wrong.

Heatherphil

Thanks for the not very helpful response joakgarp. Google also shows the incorrect address, for your information. This is where we thought we would be staying. Unfortunately the real address is elsewhere. I can show it on a google link but apparently I can't post URLs until I have 5 posts so you'll just have to trust me.

Yes, I am indeed saying they are both wrong. I can only think it is a result of the fact that Google is of course blocked in China and thus does not have the correct information. However, I think it is not an excuse for Marriott, which should be showing the correct location for its own hotel on its own app and own website.

As I mentioned, the response to my bad trip advisor review was indeed to acknowledge that the app and website address are incorrect. But that was all I got.

bitterproffit

Apple maps shows it in a completely different location a few miles north of the city center.

Heatherphil

Thanks Jeanie - I did contact Marriott on Twitter, on three of their Twitter accounts in fact, and never got a response.

Their customer service is truly appalling, I've never experienced anything like it.

atojbk

that's truly awful. I hope you someone reaches out to you and compensates you appropriately.

Antarius

I did some digging. I am not sure where the Courtyard is, although the address says it is in the Economic and Technological development zone. Mapping from the zone to the Google Maps location shows that you are 35 mins away by car.



So looks like this is the discrepancy. Marriott should fix it, this is pretty absurd.

Heatherphil

Thank you for the map that is very helpful! Yes this represents exactly what we confronted when we arrived.

Incidentally, I emailed Marriott over two weeks ago about this (as soon as we got there). As of right now, the app and website still show the wrong address. So they have not even attempted to fix it yet...

bitterproffit

Sorry you had that experience. Maybe the moderator could change the title of this thread so people know the Courtyard in Xi'an is not where they think it is.

Troopers

Give Marriott social media team a few days...they're suffocating with the rollout of the new program.

Antarius

I would call them in a week or so (after the merger madness is starting to die down) and ask to speak to someone in Customer Relations or Customer Support about this. The person who replied to the email probably googled it like I did and was confused - it takes some digging to figure out that what we consider to be a cartological gospel (Google Maps) is completely wrong.