tsedg

*****UPDATE******

I called the Marriott Properties Local Hawaiian Reservation line (my second call...first was to the Platinum Concierge who had completely incorrect information and was not helpful).....and here is the scoop:

It is in fact a glitch.....kids under the age of 18 (at least in Hawaii) are not charged the extra person fee.

Say what you want about my OP, Calling the Plat Concierge should have at least generated an investigation rather than a blanket affirmation of the policy and insistence that it was a valid fee....that interaction right I believe says all you need to know about how the integration is going.

The Hawaii reservation rep expressed frustration with the phantom fee and indicated that they had been receiving a large number of calls about it.

But I was wrong, led down the path by an unhelpful representative.......It was a complete waste of my time but since everyone was accusing me of various high crimes against the program I investigated further. I still think this is a complete mess, Marriott owes us a clarification as to what fees apply to children /extra persons in what circumstances.

To the poster who lived under the family of five....I suggest you request a top floor room next time you are in Hawaii.
***************


As a longtime SPG loyalist with three kids I've always known that you can only book 2 people for award bookings but have also never experienced extra person fees up till now outside of a nominal rollaway charge that almost never been more than $50.

My experiences as a platinum when arriving at property has been...if there was enough bedding in the room for the kids there was no charge.

It was interesting when Marriott started allowing award bookings for more than 2 people I noticed the extra person charges on an overseas stay, which I get can happen sometimes (esp in europe)...but this wasn't europe...still it was $40 per person and I figured I could reach out to the property as a platinum and see what could be done.

Then this eye opening monster fee caught me by surprise, Now let me say I ordinarily book two rooms for comfort with 3 kids but in this case it was a 1 nighter before catching a flight and was looking to economize, the Westin Moana Surfrider offers rooms that can accommodate 5 people with a rollaway, I have a 13, 10 and 7 year old so I thought, perfect....they have a room for 66,000 points.

So when I went to book the "points" room, the confirmation came through....66k in points and $456 in taxes and fees.....What???

So it broke down as follows:

• Total points rate
  66,000
• Extra Person Fee
  360.00
• Resort Fee
  37.00
• Estimated government taxes and fees
  59.40

Ok, your standard ridiculous resort fee for "internet" that I get anyway and a USA today....And $60 in govt taxes and fees that I'm guessing were largely generated by the $360 in extra person fees! For kids no less, two of which were under the age of 12!

How do the extra person fees on a room wind up costing more than it would to book a second room?

I get that if you put another adult in the room maybe an extra person fee would be justified but the fact that they charge it for children strikes me as extremely anti family by Marriott....that and if you let me list my 13 year old as a child, you shouldn't consider her an adult for pricing purposes? (which they apparently do)...they need to be consistent with this across properties.

What happened to the "kids stay free in existing bedding" policies that SPG used to have, did they just go out the window on US properties?

I think a master thread should be started to expose this naked fee grab / devaluation by Marriott.

myperks

Often1

So, when the property is in Europe, you reach out and ask "what can be done," but you did not do this in the US before starting a thread? Was this an error, is there anything "to be done"?

When I just checked for random dates in March, the cash component for a 5-person room is $30 and the cash only rate is $341. Thus, what you found has to be a mistake unless there is something really odd about your stay.

Cledaybuck

This is happening in lots of places with former SPG hotels. The hotel may not even know it is happening.
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/marr...marriotts.html

MePlatPremier

1973 Ford Pinto

and if the hotel had charged them extra your stay would have been better because _____________?

tsedg

Oh, I think they know, I think this is a deliberate attempt by Marriott to allow individual properties to generate ancillary revenue by creating nebulous policies about what is allowable in terms of these fees all with no accountability by the corporate entity in charge of the brand. .....isn't the whole point of a brand a consistent experience?

If Marriott is creating policies that fob off responsibility for standards (and yes fees ARE a standard) to the individual properties in the name of flexibility and profitability..... they clearly are devaluing it, at some point why have a brand at all? After all ts just going to be a booking engine for loosely associated hotels and resorts that do whatever they feel like.....

Its like the Resort fee, there isn't even a guideline as to what the fee range should be and it makes up front pricing much more difficult and annoying. We have come to accept the resort fee because even though it varies it still winds up being a minor cost in the scheme of things...although its nearly $40 at the Moana Surfrider which is edging towards more than an annoyance.

Another person in this thread asked if I had reached out to Marriott/Bonvoy, yes of course I did, and they fobbed off responsibility saying the individual property sets the fee and that there was nothing they could do about it. To me, the whole reason I would want to maintain my platinum status is that its supposed to make things easier on my end...not more difficult....and frankly I can't be bothered to reach out to the property to try and get the fee waived if my platinum rep says they can't do anything about it. Its a clear devaluation of brand and the value of loyalty status with the brand and in this case I just moved on to a property that was more transparent....at some point given how badly Marriott is screwing this up the time to cut bait with my loyalty to the company will come to an end, I can kind of see that eventuality on the horizon given the degradation since the merger. I'm halfway to lifetime platinum but if the benefits keep getting devalued and denigrated, frankly whats the point?

Honestly I never thought booking a plane flight would be more transparent than a Marriott Hotel room! At least airlines have standard fees for things like checked bags and seat assignments.

Anyway it should make the guy who was complaining about having a family of 5 above him happy (dude must not have children)....well happy at least until some hotel in the portfolio figures out a way to sock him with an unregulated fee.

Cledaybuck

Do they? If you read the thread I linked, you will see that there are several people, including myself, that have called properties to confirm they don't charge extra for children.

Often1

OP has not even done that. Simply started one of those social media campaigns without making so much as a call, even though acknowledging that this has worked in Europe. Remember, OP's result was a $360.00 extra person fee, which exceeds the cost of a typical five-person room at that property on an average day.

ethernal

You're right, it is crazy that OP used the Marriott booking portal and trusted the price that s/he was quoted there. What a fool. Why didn't s/he just call and ask the hotel? Because obviously in this day and age it is only expected that online bookings - directly through the approved brand channel - are not wrong and require verification with the hotel.

Don't blame OP, blame Marriott for chronic issues with its booking portal.

azepine00

This.

I havent seen any reports of families being forced to pay extra for kids in most countries and general booking engine limitations are not limited to marriott.