Problems with payment with Marriott group hotel
 

Last week I booked 3 nights at the new Courtyard by Marriott in Singapore - but yesterday I noticed that while other hotels and airlines had charged for my travels, the advance purchase from Courtyard by Marriott had not been deducted from my account (not even in pending transactions).

I contacted the hotel directly by email and asked what the issue was, and I got a reply saying that the reservations team tried to deduct my account but was declined.

First off, should the hotel not have contacted me immediately to inform me of this, or was I supposed to only find out upon landing in Singapore?
Secondly, it seems there is smallprint (not made clear during the booking process) that prepayment rates (advance purchase) made online with Courtyard, and presumably the whole Marriott group(?) can only be made with credit cards - not debit cards.

Has anyone heard of this smallprint before? I am pretty well travelled and have stayed in better hotels than this one and have not came across this smallprint before, so I suspect this is why my 'payment' was declined, simply because I am not using the correct card.

Presumably now my booking is void unless I want to change to a 'pay at the hotel' rate which is of course much more expensive.
The hotel is contacting me later on today with more info, although if they're hoping for a credit card then I don't have one!

I think you're making a few assumptions that may or may not be true. Not in any particular order.

There is literally nothing in Marriott T&Cs saying debit cards can't be used at any MAR property, whether advance purchase rate or not.

Unless you've changed your booking (dates, etc), the rate will not change. Whatever you booked it at will be what's charged, whether it be in advance or at the front desk. The only variance will be if you change dates. BTW - that's always why it's good to have a copy of your reservation, to show the original T&Cs.

While advance purchase rates should be charged at time of booking, not all are. Some are done day before or day of arrival.

Advance charges can get declined for a variety of reasons: lack of funds, location of property, location of debit card (I know of a US property that has a Polish client & his debit card charges keep getting declined/it's outside his normal spending pattern or outside his limit, even though he says he has enough, & it's more to do w/ the bank's procedure & not the hotel's). Marriott's (and most hotel chains) are is if it clears it's good/doesn't matter if it's a debit or credit card.

I do agree that if your debit card was declined the property should have reached out to you, but they might have taken the approach of well it was declined but we'll just get a different CC at check-in & charge it then - aka, nothing nefarious.

Cheers.

Thanks for the insight.
The hotel have now tried twice, and both times my debit card was declined. This is the only hotel ever in Singapore for this to happen to me.
I phoned my bank and there is nothing stopping a debit from Singapore (as I thought), but they did suggest that some hotels require chip and pin verification for debit cards (not for credit cards), so obviously without me being there to input my pin number, it seems my card won't be accepted for this online transaction.

No they haven't cancelled it yet. They are just awaiting payment. But I don't know how much longer they will allow me to keep the reservation.

Did you ask them how long they will allow you to keep your reservation? Will they keep it until you arrive?

Did you bank/card issuer see the charges that were declined? They should have a record of all attempts and they would be the one to tell you why it was declined. If they have no receord of an attempted transaction, then the folks in Singapore are doing something wrong and saying it was "declined" is inaccurate.

Yeah, my bank told me they could see 2 attempts to take payment... but both times the transaction failed. My bank also didn't know the reason.

I think I am going to have to cancel this booking, and head to the Hotel Jen Orchardgateway instead (or the Andaz). Ridiculous that in 2018 people still need credit card to make hotel bookings.

It's not a credit card vs. debit booking. MAR doesn't discriminate between the two methods of payment. Seriously it doesn't. It really sounds like a specific property issue. If I were you I'd contact the property again & tell them the bank can see the attempts. If you're willing to do this, i'd conference call the hotel/bank & let them talk to each other & let them figure out the problem (might come in handy to hear the conversation in case you run into it again).

BTW - the Poland example I gave above that friend told me about when we were chatting int'l stuff. Debit card situation. This was after check-in; a bit of a long stay, The Poland bank considered every attempt by MAR to do a pre-authorization as an actual charge, even though it wasn't. MAR's system, if there is a decline, is to attempt to authorize each day. So the 'charge' kept adding on on the Polish side/way over limit. The guest contacted the bank who said the 'charges' would drop off after 7 days, so the hotel (which knew the guest) temporarily switched him to a cash payment so MAR software wouldn't keep piling on. After 7 days, the 'charges' (even though they weren't) dropped & they were able to charge the stay then.

Friend is dealing w/ another Polish guest in the same situation, so it really is dependent upon bank/country.

Cheers.

Thanks for the advice, but it seems my problem isn't going to go away.

I am trying to cancel the booking directly with Courtyard, and then book the same thing on Agoda, which allows me to use my debit card. Courtyard by Marriott Novena in Singapore only allow credit card pre-payments online, so that is certainly a hotel-specific thing.

However, I am on a no cancellation/no amendment booking with Courtyard - yet what are they going to do? They cannot debit my account with a penalty fee, so it is in their best interest to cancel it. At least they will still get my custom eventually...