margarita girl

My best story like that was at St Regis Bali. Tried to check in at 10 am. My 2700 sq ft suite wasn’t ready so they upgraded me to 5000 sq ft pool suite for my 2 night stay. Wow, wow, wow! ^

uElliots

IME, every property has asked me at check in if I would like the 4PM checkout. It's been a very positive experience
Caveat - I'm not staying at high end properties - just your run of the mill properties in business locations.

DavefromSt.Vital

As I noted in the Hotel de Berri (Paris, France) thread, I was there in August for five nights on points and I am Platinum. It was generally a good stay but no one mentioned checkout at all from check-in onwards so I asked on the second last day about it. Despite the Hotel de Berri not being a resort or a convention hotel I was told that late checkouts were "subject to availability". I was told that I would have to vacate the suite I was in by 12:00 as they had assigned it to another Platinum member for the next night, but since they were not busy I could have a regular room to shower in for the following afternoon.

Afterwards, I sent an email to the GM but there was no response. I emailed Marriott and they said that this was a proper fulfillment of the 4:00 p.m. guarantee. Some seem to agree, some do not. Given that the property is a Category 8 and they were VERY proactive in finding out when guests were scheduled to arrive I had thought that they had worked room assignments out to cover guaranteed late checkouts. I guess not. We definitely do not party like rock stars, so making up the room and turning it around would not have taken long.

flyingeph12

I've been on the other end of this, where I was pre-upgraded into a suite and arrived only to find the room still occupied. Annoying, of course, but I understand. The hotels have usually let me use a standard room to shower/freshen up and then moved my stuff once the suite was vacated and cleaned. I think a hotel asking a guest in a suite to vacate at the standard check-out time with the option of using a standard room until 4pm is a reasonable interpretation of the rules—especially if the particular suite category is fully booked for the following night.

DavefromSt.Vital

What gets me is that the terms and conditions are worded fairly simply. Platinum and above get a 4:00 p.m. late checkout, no mention of any exceptions. The only time it is "subject to availability" is at resorts and convention hotels. It doesn't matter if the room type has been fully allocated the next day. Availability is irrelevant. To me, offering the use of another room is an accommodation for failing to honour the guarantee - it is not part of that guarantee.

Of course a proper guarantee should come with some sort of listed consequence for not honouring that guarantee. If properties balk at it being straight out financial like most of the other published benefits in the program, why not try something like X% of points necessary for a one night stay at peak rate?

This section of the terms and conditions really needs to go back to Marriott Legal for another hack at it. Something more fully fleshed out would make everything clearer and less open to random interpretation.

flyingeph12

You are not wrong. But even if availability is irrelevant under the terms and conditions, I think it is very relevant in real life. I am generally in favor of hotels following the rules, including the late-checkout rule. But I'm also willing to be flexible if the circumstances reasonably warrant it. For example, if it's a choice of being upgraded and having to vacate the suite at standard checkout time versus not being upgraded at all, I'd probably choose the upgrade. Also, I'm fine with relocating to a different/standard room if it means the hotels in general are more willing to keep the 4pm late checkout. And like I said before, I've been the party inconvenienced because a previous guest stayed in the room until 4pm, and in my opinion, not being able to settle in to your room after a long trip is way worse than having to relocate for a few hours upon departure.

DavefromSt.Vital

Trust me, I know exactly what you mean and it is a trade-off; better likelihood of some upgrade versus certainty of benefit. I come down on the letter of the contract side.

Sticking with the contract angle, if the late checkout is to be negotiable, then it should not be written as "guaranteed". Some other wording is required. IMO, this is one of those issues that separates the various dwelling renting apps from actual hotel chains. If I just want to rent a "home" for a night with little certainty as to what I will get I can go to an app. If I want brand standards and an expectation that certain benefits will be honoured as written, then I will go with a hotel chain.

sbrower

But, under that strict contract interpretation the upgrade "isn't available" because the room is booked starting at 3pm the next day (for the next day's upgraded guest). So they aren't required to give you the upgrade room. What some of us are thinking is that we would rather make the upgrade room "available" by agreeing to a substitution for the late afternoon. You might prefer not to get the upgrade in the first place.

DavefromSt.Vital

There is no "availability" clause for Platinums and up. It doesn't matter if there are rooms available for non-resort and convention hotels. The benefit simply states that a 4:00 p.m. checkout is guaranteed.

DavefromSt.Vital

As of September 2019, the relevant provision (s. 4.3.c.(v)) is:

v. 4 p.m. Late Checkout. Platinum Elite Members and above may check out as late as 4 p.m. local time of the Participating Property. Members can request late checkout when making a reservation through central reservations, at check-in, via the mobile app (where available) or at any time during their stay. This benefit is guaranteed at all Participating Properties, except at resort and convention hotels and Design HotelsTM, where it is based upon availability. Marriott Vacation Club, Marriott Grand Residence Club, and Vistana properties are excluded from this benefit.

margarita girl

I agree. If Plat guests dig their heels in and refuse to work with the hotel, how long before the hotels lobby Marriott to do away with this benefit? I'm willing to be flexible to make it easier to keep all parties happy.

flyingeph12

Well, if we’re going to be super technical, the language says “check out as late as 4 p.m.,” not “keep the room until 4 p.m.” I would say that a reasonable interpretation (not necessarily the best or most natural, just reasonable) of the “as late as” language is that a platinum member is guaranteed simply the ability of a checkout “as late as” 4 p.m., not necessarily that the member will be able to checkout at 4 p.m. in all cases. Now that I see the actual language, I think it is well within the language of the terms to allow the platinum to checkout at 4 p.m., but to be in a different room between the normal checkout time and 4 p.m.

Also, if you are a proponent of strict adherence to the rules, I guess you would be fine with a hotel charging half a night (or whatever) if you were to checkout at 4:01?

GUWonder

Is this implying that hotel guests haven’t already at times dug their heels in and refused to work with a hotel over late check-out benefits being ignored or toyed with by a hotel? Either way, I’m sure that guests digging in their heels has happened and yet the benefit has remained.

I have had situations where hotels where I’ve been entitled in ways to late check out of 4pm or 6pm have tried to get me to empty out the rooms by noon to 2pm and yet I sort of dug in my heels or had already dug in my heels and didn’t check out until closer to 4pm or 6pm. In my experience it seems like those hotels used to customers “digging in their heels” have been better about honoring the late checkout benefit than hotels where customers caved in and left the cave at or close to the general checkout time (for most guests) after being subject to inconsistent representations made by the hotels and those with agency relationships to the hotels.

Would I checkout earlier than is convenient for me if a hotel requests it? I’ve done it before, but I also don’t expect that this necessarily does me any favors with the hotel or with receipt of benefits entitled to me that may not necessarily be available to most other hotel guests at the time.

yyzflyer

I have only been turned down for this benefit once in the times I've needed it since implementation. However, as I documented in the hotel-specific thread, I recently had a request approved but with a fee attached. I had requested a later check-out on the mobile app at the combined Springhill/Residence Inn San Diego Bayfront, since we needed to move to another nearby hotel after one night and didn't want to arrive ridiculously early. The hotel was completely booked both on night of arrival and the next one. When I checked in (they apparently don't use mobile check-in, so you start from "scratch" on arrival), the FD clerk acknowledged my request for late check-out the next morning - for which there would be a fee of $49 + taxes for 2 pm and $99 + taxes for 4 pm. This was presented to me in writing, along with several other rules that I had to agree to as part of the process. I told him I thought late check-out was an elite benefit and he confirmed it was - just not a free benefit when the hotel was at capacity. I declined to pay. Oddly the hotel has different regular check-out times for the Springhill and Residence sides, so we had to be out by 11:00. I discussed this with another front desk manager later in the trip and they agreed that "technically" this meets the requirements, i.e. that late check-out is guaranteed, but not necessarily "free", although they would not do this to a Titanium member at their hotel. It turned out to be no big deal since our room at the next hotel was ready ahead of schedule, but others must have encountered similar situations.

GoPhils

I see it a different way - they may keep the late checkout benefit, but hotels may be less likely to upgrade you. They supposedly "have to" honor the late checkout, but they don't "have to" upgrade you.

I don't really have much issue with what happened in Dave's case. The one thing maybe they could have done better was ask what time he needed to checkout when he checked in, and given the option then (late checkout in a regular room, or no late checkout in a suite). That seems like a reasonable choice to me.