Johnny Rocket

It's exactly a month since the merger took place. What's your impression as to how things have gone?

Judging from the postings on here, it seems like a mess.

But maybe we are just hearing the bad stories?

For me, I cannot understand why the two brands, Rewards and Preferred Guest still exist side by side with near-identical apps and websites.

Some of my points from my Amex cards also haven't posted, but apart from that everything seems fine.

I would check the SPG site almost every day for deals and future bookings, but I don't seem to have the draw (at least at present) with Marriott's offerings.

FlyerJ

• My status is still wrong. (I still show as LTP, rather than LTPP. Although, to their credit, this is one of the few things that they've proactively communicated -- apparently I'll be updated in an end-of-year sweep.)
• I've called in once to verify that multiple upcoming reservations had their certificates attached -- because (without getting into all of the gory details) I saw errors as soon as the merger happened and the new points levels were introduced. After a verrrrry, verrrryy long wait, the agent told me what she could see in her system (but that required a lot of digging) ... and it was nothing close to what I know the reality to be. The 'system' was clearly wrong, but it actually worked out in my favor. The agent was friendly and went out of her way to help me, but confided that it's been a gong show for them from the time of the merger. (I think she bent over backwards to help me simply because I was being nice to her. It sounds like she's had a lot of people screaming at her.)
• I've sent in two emails asking for corrections to a credit to my account (I was vastly 'undercredited' for a stay). Both emails have gone into the abyss. No response.
• I sent a private DM to Marriott Rewards on Twitter asking for assistance on a different matter. No response. It was just ignored.
• Today, as mentioned in a different post, I submitted a request for a missing stay. Immediately, I received an "Undeliverable, because this email inbox is full" message in my Inbox. The email wouldn't even go through because (a) they're so backed up and (b) they apparently don't even know how to increase the size of their mailbox and (c) it turns out that the fancy webform just sends someone an email. Unbelievable.

My accounts and points (albeit an incorrect balance) are combined, and there's this facade that everything's combined. But I still get routed to a different website to book a legacy-Starwood hotel. Email inboxes are overflowing, and I assume nobody even notices ... since increasing an Inbox size is an easy fix. Social media requests for help go without any response or acknowledgment. It's an utter gong show.

And, above all, there's been bloody little proactive communication to members about what's going on, what's happened, what's still to come. Virtually zero.

But at least the phone agent that I finally got through to was friendly, professional and apologetic.

And this is my experience as a "Lifetime Platinum" (well, actually LTPP, but I have to wait for the sweep.) To say I'm not feeling loved is an understatement, but I realize that absolutely everyone else is in the same dismal boat.

Wow. I miss Starwood.


Edited to add:

• Oh, and the first post-merger promotion? A relatively pointless endeavor giving (a) meager bonus points but (b) only if you stay for two nights or longer. "Yawn" is an understatement. It's more like "We're so big we know we're almost a monopoly, so we really don't even have to try any more."

Jerrremy

Exactly what i am experiencing as well. Poor customer service.

scottienz69

I was travelling overseas during the changeover period - one stay has showed up in my account and the other hasn't - it's taken around 3 weeks of chasing to get any kind of basic response from the Marriott customer service team. I just tried to book a free night as part of a trip for my wife and daughter next month thru SPG's contact centre. After 20-25 minutes they finally told me that they couldn't book a mix of a free night plus a couple of additional paid nights because of systems issues, and that I should try booking it myself online! Guess what? Now when I try to do that the SPG Free Nights award availability has disappeared! I'm guessing that the contact centre hasn't re-released what they were holding/trying to book for me back into their available inventory!! So I've messaged my wife's preferred hotel directly to see if they can help (although I'm not holding my breath)....

dayone

A new week. A new merger status thread.

CCIE_Flyer

I'm just certain that you meant to say a new day!

username

I had a reservation that was messed up from day 1. I e-mailed the first week with no response. Then I called. The Rep put me on hold for probably 20 minutes, could not fix the problem and had to open a ticket. Then they fixed half of the problem.

So, I called today. Another 10+ minute hold but the Rep was able to fix my problem (by calling someone else). So, that is progress

KRSW

"Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance" -- Other than the marketing department, I'm not sure any real planning was done. It's pure amateur hour.

The website is still hopelessly broken at times, like when signing up for the new promotion, printing folios, or even searching for properties. Try to book an SPG property and it'll kick you over to SPG.com with it's vastly superior price grid...but marketing tells me they are now integrated! It's become painfully obvious to me that whoever is designing these websites doesn't have much experience booking/staying at hotels.

I think what's been the worst is Marriott's lack of communication about everything.

Other than their new hire, the former Iraqi Information Minister's PR spin machine, there's been no communication. Status.marriott.com shows "all systems are working" when obviously they're not. Hell, they've not bothered to update that in over a week from the date on top of the page, which shows that status page is manually updated, not automated. I've had automated status screens for my services & servers for over 20 years...why can't something like a $22 BILLION/year revenue company have this?

One of the Hilton sales reps was chatting me up today, asking what she could do to earn more of my business, to which I replied, "pray Marriott keeps doing what they're doing... If the s**tshow continues, you'll be getting a lot more of our business next year." It's been at least 8 years since I've had so many NON-Marriott property stays in a year.

The only thing that's kept me with Marriott this year are the individual properties. Some I've stayed at for years and have befriended staff there. Sometimes those properties feel more like home to me than my actual house. At another we just started staying at in July, the hotel's in a good location but is well-worn and they started a major overhaul last month, BUT the staff have made it more than worth it. I also like the SHS/RI layouts.

EuropeanPete

I'm going to say that in the last week Marriott has gone from "essentially unusable" to "unreliable and unresponsive" for me. I'm giving Marriott another try with a few stays in the next couple of weeks, so we'll see.

My status has been wrong on every stay, the website is frequently unusable and my Ambassador can no longer be relied upon to chase down properties which do not immediately get back to him (presumably a workload issue), so I have to do a lot of chasing - as well as raising a lot more with him because of the lack of Platinum Chat, email addresses on websites and web functionality (e.g. You24).

flying_geek

I cancelled my AX SPG card yesterday and got the Hilton Aspire card. If you had told me a year ago I would seriously consider staying at a Hilton, I would have laughed you out of the room.
I had well over 1000 LT nights in SPG and according to the site 19 years as Platinum (though I think that is too high)- I was SPG 75 before the merger and now I am Platinum..., and while being quite pessimistic about the merger, I would never have thought it could be anywhere near as bad as it has become. Customer service is essentially not available. Occasional email responses do not reference my actual question or issue but contain some generic "we are working on it BS". My free night certificate (which expires in October) is lost in Marriott IT and I can't even reach anyone - not that I am overly hopeful anyone could or would do anything about it. To me, the few successful interactions with customer service gave me the impression of arrogance, incompetence and probably inability to do absolutely anything.

christianj

Maybe we should wait and post a new thread to the forum when all the crap is actually working as it should be! Which at this rate will likely NEVER happen.

JBord

I think the results are very individual. I've had 2 stays, and just booked my 3rd for next week. I do have some minor issues with data on the website/app, but nothing that really matters to me.

- I've had no problems booking
- At the properties, I've experienced business as usual
- I've had no issues with status, points, etc.
- My new (via new merger plan rules) LT status is correct
- Service at the properties has been the same
- As an average business traveler, I rarely have a reason to call Marriott, so I haven't had wait times

I don't want to diminish the issues others are experiencing, but I think there are two stories. Some have experienced issues, from minor to significantly impacting their travel. For others, it's been largely a non-event. I think it's difficult to judge how Marriott is doing overall based on this forum. If perfection were the goal, they've failed. But that's not usually the goal in large IT mergers. The recovery time is certainly longer than I expected though.

Spent_All_My_Miles

I think the "how are they doing" can be divided into two parts, the combining of one's SPG/MR accounts and the "new normal" of Marriott customer service, website functionality, policies, etc.

Narrowly defined, the combining of my SPG/MR accounts has worked. I have one account with the correct number of points, LT nights, YTD nights, all my upcoming reservations, correct status, etc.

However, the "new normal" part of the transition is bad. The Marriott website has much less functionality than the SPG website, stays don't post the day after checkout the way they did, points for incidental spending aren't posting, some goodwill points that should have posted have not, folio emails are not coming through consistently, etc.

Old Hickory

Well, you are asking the unofficial complaint forum... :-)

Old Hickory

So we've slowed to weeks now. That's progress, right?