Ubud

Thanks for the quick reply. The problem is that we have seen several instances where the Marriott website is charging for children when the hotel says directly they shouldn't. Moreover, the policy for each hotel is not listed (as far as I can see), whereas Starwood was good about explicitly stating the policy for each location.

Unless this is addressed, our only option is to contact each property where we want to stay to find out the policy, and assuming we get confirmation then book for 2 adults.

What I would hope for is an acknowledgement that the issue is being looked into and that it will be addressed sooner than later.

Starwood Lurker

Here is my suggestion then...if you encounter a situation such as this, call customer service and ask them to create a ticket to be sent to the hotel in question. The hotel will know who to contact at Marriott to get it sorted. I would not even have a clue where to start...and yes, I've tried.

Best regards,

William R. Sanders
Social Media Specialist
Marriott International

[email protected]

lkar

It's interesting that this is happening, even with many hotels denying that it's intended. One little piece of the mystery -- the app does not appear to let you distinguish between adults and children and only asks how many "guests" in the room. And then it prices as though all of those guests are adults. I think the way it used to work with starwood is that the rules for who counted as children were disclosed for every hotel so you knew how many "guests" to enter, but now it's not so clear.

Maybe the app and the website are operating on the same general platform where the website even though it breaks things out between adults and children is really just grouping them all as "guests."

Bottom line is that Marriott seems to have an awful lot of stuff on its plate right now to get the tech all sorted out and so I assume this would be low priority even if it's a problem seen as needing fixing. I expect that it eventually will get fixed if the hotels feel like they are losing business but who knows. Some customers may fall for it and pay hundreds of extra dollars in "extra person" fees just because they think they are supposed to, in which case the properties might actually prefer them!

DnvTrvlr

Just another "benefit" of the Marriott/SPG merger! I am seeing the same thing booking at the Westin Kaanapali Ocean Resort Villas for Thanksgiving 2019. A standard studio room that accommodates up to four people adds an extra $50 per night for my son as guest #3 . Ridiculous.

genotonda

Seriously? What hotel has the desire, or even the resources to sit and try to monitor this kind of thing? Like there's some secret security agent who not only monitors the check-in desk to see how many people you have reserved in your room, but then follows you around to make sure that you don't go into the room with anyone else? Give me a break.

I had a similar problem at the Marriott in Aruba over New Years. I was using Suite night Awards, and for some reason the available Suites showed a maximum occupancy of three people, even though they have the same bed accommodations as the normal rooms. So the available Suite options would disappear when I wanted to select them for the suite night award. So I simply changed the reservation details to two adults and one child, my suite night award ended up clearing, and then upon check-in they even offered to send a rollaway bed to the room even though there was a full pull out couch. No one is going to follow you to your room and see how many people are staying in there. Especially when it's kids. Again, don't have the entire family walk up to the check-in line. I get the concern if it's a property in Europe, that has stricter occupancy maximum of 2, but especially domestically, this should not be an issue.

EuropeanPete

writerguyfl

It would be extremely unusual for a hotel to assign a staff member to be the room occupancy police. However, that doesn't mean some hotels don't have processes in place to accomplish that task as part of normal operations.

In one hotel in which I worked, this scenario would have easily been discovered by Housekeeping. Any time the listed occupancy differed from apparent occupancy, that fact was noted. It's usually pretty easy to tell. The Front Desk got that information and if appropriate, someone would contact the lead guest and discuss the issue.

Certainly, not all hotels are that organized. But, some are. I'd bet that any hotel that charges more than the usual $25ish/night will be more likely to have these types of processes in place.

dayone

As long as the policy is disclosed, a hotel can add a fee for additional occupancy. We, as guests, may not like it or deem it "ridiculous," but that doesn't make it wrong or invalid.

Each person operates by his/her personal ethics and defines his/her own integrity. For several reasons, I wouldn't "hide" my children when checking in, and breaking rules in their presence is not the example I want to set. YMMV.

Often1

Or the property is oversold and ditching a scammer is the easiest route to take.

lkar

silverforumsurf

Ubud

I agree that is quite likely, but as William reported, for now it would take our intervention on a property-by-property basis to resolve it. Apparently there are bigger IT fish to fry before this would be addressed. It may also be a case that it's no so much a glitch, but that the data needs to be updated for certain properties, and corporate is not about to do that. I don't agree with the idea that customers should bear the burden of identifying all these properties and then initiating a fix, but I do appreciate William's frank answer as to the current reality.

What might be more immediately useful is a Wiki post identifying properties with the extra fees, and whether it has been verified with the hotel directly.

A related issue mentioned up-thread is properties which report max occupancy 3 in those same 2 QN/DBL rooms. Perhaps not a concern in NA, but it definitely makes searching for properties difficult outside NA.

I would also suggest a Wiki listing family-friendly properties outside of NA, i.e. offering rooms with 2 QN/DBL, and also listing whether the hotel charges for the 3rd or 4th person or child.

FrustratedinCA

This isn't a new policy or anything specific to Marriott. Hiltons across Hawaii (particularly the Hilton Hawaiian Village) do the same. And FWIW, the Sheraton Maui has been charging extra person fees for decades. When I was a kid, my mom would have my sister and I wait with our dad in the car or at another part of the hotel until we were checked in and then we'd meet her at the room. We never got called on it, but we did take that risk. Now, my mom had status with SPG at the time and was a very regular guest at the Sheraton Maui--we'd stay there at least once per year--so if the hotel staff noticed, they may have looked the other way because she was a frequent guest. I wouldn't recommend doing it though...

BTW, the other way Hawaii hotels audit how many people are in the room is they require daily wristbands to use the pool. If you ask for too many wristbands in a day, they know you've got more people in your room. They may overlook it, but it's really not hard to know if you have extra guests in the room.

Ubud

What is new is that post-merger Marriott removed the information that Starwood had provided for each property stating their specific policy. My experience was that the majority of Starwood properties did not charge extra for children under 12. Now, we instead have the booking engine adding those extra fees for properties which still say they do not charge.

Definitely a change and a step backwards for guests with children.

FrustratedinCA

Again, I've been experiencing this in Hawaii with multiple SPG properties for the better part of nearly three decades (and I was under 12 when my mom was asking me to stay in the car). Perhaps the policy has changed at the specific property that you've chosen, but SPG has been charging these fees for a very long time.