Lizie

Give a date when you expect this to be concluded or you'll run the risk of being batted between the hotel and Marriott.

C17PSGR

I think there are a combination of issues here ...

1. The hotel didn't check the OP in. Since they didn't check the OP in, they didn't get paid by Marriott for the points.
2. Unlike most hotels, the StR Aspen isn't going to get any last minute walk-in and is likely fully booked. So, since they didn't check the OP in, the room went empty and they didn't get paid.
3. Normally, when I have an early morning arrival, Marriott properties around the world almost always will simply check me in at 7 AM without a charge. Over the years, there have been a couple of properties that ask me to book the night before to guarantee a room for an early arrival. I then remind them to check me in. I'm not blaming OP but in terms of lessons learned for others, if this is an issue, one may want to ask the property to check in over the phone. That way, the property gets paid and there are no issues.

That being said, lots of people were impacted by weather this week. If you're a ski resort property, its a cost of doing business. Additionally, as a higher end property, you would think they care about reputation but, my worst cancellation experience, is with a StR before the merger and I agree with the concept that they can be arrogant. I believe their approach is that you must have the money to stay there so just pay up.

I hope OP continues to escalate this. Of course, they key to consumer AG complaints or credit card challenges will be the email the OP received up front describing penalties. I'm not saying that's fair or guest oriented but it does set the legal rights for everyone, even if a guest oriented GM and property shouldn't charge this, just as legacy Marriott properties have never charged me for flight related cancellations that would otherwise trigger a room payment.

CCIE_Flyer

'Outrageous' is all in the eye of the beholder. We're talking about a town where $900k in personal assets is the upper cutoff to qualify for affordable housing. Heck, we're not even talking about a single day's worth of cocaine here.

sean1397

I now have 5 posts. Here is my confirmation email saying the rate was paid in full in points and not cancelable within 60 days. This implies to me if you cancel you lose the payment or points. No where does it say there is an $1100 fee if you no show? The manager told me twice the $1100 is on the email. It is not. To be fair it does say further down the email stay is subject to cancelation policy. There is no link or any other information. I would think any reasonable person with this email would think the cancelation policy was no refund within 60 days as it says.


This is a Marriott vs SPG issue for a few reasons,. The ST Regis is hiding behind some hidden Marriott T&C that they claim is no the email (its not). Starwood did not have this cash penalty so they couldnt hide behind hidden T&C

Its also a Marriott vs SPG issue cause anytime I called SPG things got fixed immediately. I've called Marriott twice now and waited over 15 minutes before hanging up. There is no option to leave a voicemail. Ill eventually email them. This goes very in line with their response that they cant yet email my account hotel receipts and I can call for a fax at each hotel. Marriott doesn't seem to care about business travelers (also as shown by devaluing SPG Points)


Further we were not no shows. We Checked in at 8AM. My confirmation email says check in is 4PM so this would imply we could not do this without booking 2 nights. Further when checking in no one said a word (then or on the phone when I called to say Id be late or when I added a second person)_ that the initial booking had been canceled and there was an $1100 fee. Instead they just let my friend on the room check in and told her her card would be for incidentals. A bs penalty from the night before when we weren't no shows is not an incidental. Charging someone $1100 without telling them (she never read any T&C or booked any room) is fraud I believe at worse and wrong at best. I also do not believe they had any right to cancel the first 2 night reservation and make a new one night one. They did not tell us they were doing this. Had I known we wouldn't have rebooked the second day, We would have paid the penalty and kept the points. She already had a room,. Since I thought based on the email attached my points were forfeited I let her use my room. I could have kept the 85000 points had the hotel told me they were charging me an 1100$ fee and had they told me they were making me a new reservation. Making me a new reservation without being asked and without telling anyone and charging me points for it has to be fraud.


Lastly can anyone show me any real T&C at Marriott that tells you what the penalty is and defines a no show? I cant find one. The T&C I can find says you may be billed a fee that this fee will be based on current rates (mine was not) and it says if you no show. No where does it define a no show, say what time you must show up at or give any info. Any reasonable person would think if you booked a hotel for 2 nights and showed up during that visit you did not no show - especially if you called the hotel and told them what time you would arrive and they didn't say there would be any issue.


In any case we will dispute with Amex. This is all well documented and I suspect we will win. Ive never lost with Amex. Its more complicated in this case since we must dispute with her amex but I think it helps that she had no reservation, has never been on Marriotts award site, has no account, and signed a form that said for incidentals. I don't think Amex will let the hotel charge someone else's hidden no show to her card without the hotel making her aware of this. I will be stunned if this doesn't get reversed.

But still its a horrendous service by Marriott and the St Regis in Aspen. FRANKly if the hotel doesn't want point customers Marriott should kick them out - another reason its a Marriott issue

]

pinniped

I would just like to thank you guys for these gems. ^

Carry on...

sean1397

I will add the bottom line here is this hotel does not want point users. Ive had at least 5 friends tell me this and this chain of posts makes it clear.

Most hotels would care about their reputation as only so many people in the world will pay 1-4k/night but this is the nicest hotel with a well known name on the slopes of Aspen. Barring no snow they are almost always sold out. Right now the economy is strong and 3-4 great snow seasons have happened in a row. Every major ski resort is doing well. See how their tune changes to point stayers in a time like 2009.

This hotel deliberately misleads. When you call to add a second person to your room that is not permission to cancel one reservation and book another. Ive added 2nd guests to my room at many hotels and Ive checked in well after midnight many times at many hotels. I try to call if Im not in the air. Ive never had a problem till this time.

None of us have worked in the hotel industry. There is no expectation that we know how your codes work or how things are paid or billed for. Without further definition of no show (which I cant find in Marriott's T&C) as a lay man traveler I would think a no show means I never showed up or I might think it would mean I didn't show up during the first day of stay from 4PM to noon. It would never even dawn to me that if I didn't check in by a certain time at night I was a no show. I arrive at hotels at 5 or 8AM all the time. Other than as a Platinum Starwood with 24 hours any time I never had a hotel say you can check in at 8AM and leave at noon the next day without booking two nights. I assumed if I checked in during the first day I was a show if there is such a thing

Lastly this hotel plays games that no one can make decisions. Ive stayed at hundreds of hotels. I think only once was I ever told a manager had to call me the next day and that was during an emergency hurricane issue. Hotels like the ST Regis at their rates have a person on staff 24 hours who can make decisions. To claim at 11PM in Aspen (Place is wild till 1 or 2AM at bars) mid ski season no one was around to make a decision is a joke. I bet they could have sold me a $1500 bottle of champagne at 11PM. Then the next day the mid level manager claims he has no choice (bs and he doesn't want to review my confirmation email that he claims details the $1100 fee). He says there's a senior manager there some times and there's a GM sometimes. It's all a game. A holiday inn has someone who can do refunds. The St Regis certainly does. They don't want to take points. They don't want point customers to return and they will do anything possible to get this $1100 fee. Its really scummy at best and fraud at worse

sean1397

As for when I expect it to get concluded - within 14-30 days. I will just go through Amex. The manager told me they won't charge it back,. I bet they do. They always have. Amex is much nicer to me. I don't even have to talk to anyone charge it back online, photo them the evidence, and good luck to the St Regis. Ive called Marriott twice and wasted 30 minutes waiting.Amex will fix it with no effort. Im definitely in the right here, but Amex and other cards certainly value you based on what you spend. I even heard of them eating a charge back to keep a customer happy. No chance they don't reverse this

sean1397

While we wish the key to what a credit card does is the email or terms the biggest key to what a credit card does is what your limit is, how much you spend per year and how often you charge back (virtually never for me). If they are making 2.5% or whatever of $500k in charges per year or whatever no way in hell are they not reversing any $1000 charge even if they side with the hotel- they would likely eat it.

Yul_voyager

As I said before, if this hotel just want high income people paying +2k$ par night, they can leave Marriott and charge whatever they want to every guest. It's not like they won't be sold out during the ski season anyway...

Antarius

This is an important point. People don't tend to randomly end up at Aspen needing a hotel at the last minute.

sean1397

The last thing I will say on this whole topic (other than letting you know how Marriott and Amex deal with it) is I bet many people who stay at this hotel never notice the $1100 charge. Figure average income there is probably between 2 and 5 million depending on the week. Many of these guests bring families. They may run up $15-50,000 in charges in 7-10 days in Aspen between food, booze, other lol, Lift tickets, skis, flights *(some private), private lessons, champagne, club fees, limos, helicopters, etc. Im not in this spending range but I likely wouldn't have noticed the charge till I did some reimbursements for work in 3-6 months and frankly at that point might have thought it was a legit incidental from an expensive resort. We only noticed it to dispute it because it put my friends card over the limit and she got a notice on her phone.

I bet many people book a trip to Aspen in points. Many arrive late (Flexible schedules, biz meeting changes, net jets, etc) Many business men travel and likely check into hotels late all the time and had no idea what a no show was like me. About 30% of planes into Aspen cancel or are badly delayed - winter mountain weather. I don't know this but I bet this $1100 fee add on is great business for the h0tel. Why they were so Adamant not to reverse it (I thought for sure they would reverse it and say now you know for next time). I bet there are a lot of these fees out there at this hotel and I bet many clients never notice the fee at all thinking they just checked into their hotel a day late and all was normal like I thought till we got the text, That;'s probably the biggest way to hit this hotel is start publishing about this fee or advertising it nearby in town. I bet its big business.

Yul_voyager

I certainly hope it's going to work. I had a bad experience with Amex once. A rental car company (Avis Geneva) charged me 500$ for damage that I didn't know about. Amex reversed the charges but eventually charged me again because they said the got evidences of damage which I never received from anyone (I suspect damage have been done after I return the car and they just figure it would be a good idea to charge to the previous customer... their fake "invoice" mentioning damage was signed under my name after my flight boarding time, so a few hours after I actually returned the car...). I eventually got my money back from Avis France but Amex was really not on the customer side on this one... That's said it's Amex Canada so maybe Amex USA is different...

nacho

As far as I understand, no show is if someone don't show up at all without any communication to the hotel, and the hotel can't charge an already paid in full reservation. If they should turn to someone, go to Marriott, not the guest as Marriott is the one who has taken the points and granted him access to his room as a agreed period stated in the reservation.

This bogus T&C will be override by the national consumer law because it's not right to charge people for no-show if they have already paid with points. This is a way to protect customers in situations like this. It doesn't matter whether a hotel has to check-in a guest or not, the guest has paid the points so he has the right to access the rooms for a specific period of time. It doesn't matter if he is a day later or he never shows up.

I know it's the case in Sweden, Denmark and probably other EU countries and I do think there's something similar in the US.

In case you have trouble with chargeback, get the AG to declare that the T&C is not fair to consumers.

MSPeconomist

C17PSGR

I'd keep your complaint focused and simple. You sent a screen shot but you should have an email confirmation too. If it doesn't say $1,000, I suspect the hotel has an issue. I'd keep it to the hotel is charging me for a fee they didn't disclose. While you understand the loss of points because of the non-refundable issue, they didn't disclose the additional fee. Leave out the adding a second person, they don't like points, etc. as it clouds your main issue.

That being said, keep in mind, the hotel did actually lose money because your first night was treated by them as a no show. That doesn't excuse their conduct but Marriott pays hotels well for points when they reach a certain occupancy point.

But yes, the hotel GM here is being shortsighted. I believe the StR is the only publicly traded single property REIT out there so I'm sure that pressure is part of what is driving this.