C17PSGR

Mr. De Baets doesn't appear to have any other hotels other than the St.R Aspen

https://twitter.com/stephanedebaets?lang=en

Keyser

i'm curious why you keep saying this....why is it important to check-in before noon????

which he had already paid for with points....

but he has not received the correct number of points back for the first night....also, as per spg, the request had to be made by the customer in order to forfeit the points & once the request was made then it was guaranteed....the op made the reservation under the spg rules....

once again, the op has stated multiple times in this thread that he called the hotel & not the 800 reservation number....the op also states that the manager told him after they charged him that had he checked in on the app then he would not have been charged the cash rate....this is something that was not told to him & neither was he told that there would be a cash charge when he spoke with the hotel (not the 800 number) the night before he checked in....

there was no mention of the cash charge on the fine print while making the reservation....also, he has not castrated marriott or st. regis at all....the op has in fact kept his calm throughout this whole situation....

its difficult to read the fine print for a cash charge if there is no mention of this in the fine print when making the reservation....the op did call the hotel & spoke to them about not making it to the hotel for the first night....he was not informed at that point that he will be charged a cash rate for the reservation or that he could avoid that by checking in on the app....he was just told by the hotel that its not a problem & they would take care of it....

zachary

Once again, you are incorrect. We've been through this before. One Sheraton tried to claim that accepting points in lieu of charging a credit card was permissible because the T&C's used the word request. While there was some confusion around the issue and Lurker originally thought this might be right, it was later clarified that, under the SPG policy that was in effect when the OP made this reservation, the property is required to accept points if a request is made. To quote William, "If you request for a charge change from paid to points, the hotel has to take the points." The fact that Marriott doesn't permit this has no meaning -- this reservation was made under SPG T&Cs.

See post 69 here: No show monetary charge for SPG points booking (Sheraton Athlone, Rep of Ireland)

AmEx should (and I bet will) side with OP on this one.

Oxon Flyer

Sadly, we've now got to the point where the mods have had to remove a bunch of repetitive, personal and petty posts.

As per the FT golden rule :
If you don't have something constructive to contribute to a thread, please do not post.

Thank you for your co-operation.
The mod team

747FC

Miles Ahead

Doesn't matter to me either. The property wants the St. Regis name, but doesn't want the responsibilities that go with it. And, thus far, Marriott is okay with this. I think that's a perfectly reasonable consideration in deciding where to stay.

Gadot

SPG is no longer. It is now Marriott. The rules are now Marriott's - whether you like it or not. There is lots of case law recognizing this. For example, as a colonel I had life time membership to the Crown room - but not the sky room. This was challenged by a lawyer in Atlanta and the court agreed with Delta that there is more Crown room thus we loose. I believe he got an email from Marriott (not sure if he stated it here or another site).

Courts have upheld changes in loyalty programs:

Courts have frequently upheld provisions in loyalty program terms and conditions that allow the program sponsors to cancel, change or otherwise alter the programs. For example, courts have found in favor of both Delta6 and United7 in breach of contract actions where unhappy consumers alleged that frequent flyer program rules were changed improperly. In United’s case, the court noted that the terms of the program permitted United to make unilateral changes to the program rules. The plaintiff in the Delta case similarly could not demonstrate that Delta’s change in how mileage awards were allocated violated the program rules, despite the fact that the rules themselves were ambiguous. Alaska Airlines8 also won a case in which the court noted that the plain language of the program permitted changes to the program and that it was reasonable for these change to apply retroactively.

6 Kwok v. Delta Air Lines, Inc., 578 Fed. App’x 898 (11th Cir. 2014)
7 Gordon v. United Cont'l Holding, Inc., 73 F. Supp. 3d 472, 474 (D.N.J. 2014).
8. Monzingo v. Alaska Air Group, Inc., 112 P.3d 655 (Alaska 2005).

I agree with OP that I would be upset to wake up to a $2000 charge, but...

moondog

While it's true that there are some out of bounds posts in this thread, hitting the OP's credit card with $30,000 is a pretty big deal for many of us. What's more, if the new Marriott is cool with such practices, we will redirect our business to Hyatt and IHG.

Gadot

Hey moondog,
They hit his card for $1113 times two rooms, not $30,000. post #1 "I was shocked to find the $1000.00 charge per room on my folio for each room plus tax ($113.00) on day of checkout." But totally agree that if it was $30K.....

Also lurker said it was his opinion,, both

" think you're reading what you want to into it. A request is just that...a request. A request can be honored or denied. That is the nature of a request, isn't it? Or does every request get honored and I missed the memo on that? William R. Sanders
Social Media Specialist Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide" and then later that he thought a request had to be followed, but later he said it was his opinion.

But hints for the future: if you know you are going to arrive after the cut-off time, but still way before the check-in time (as did OP) - tell the hotel to check you in so that the room is available. Personally I do not understand the conversation the OP had with the manager when he called.and said he would be late. Did he not request to be checked in? Most hotels record conversations "for quality improvement" - (and Colorado is a one-party consent state) -- I would ask if that conversation was recorded.

I would ask you all to look at this a different way. If your company was going to sell a product to a customer and at hughly discounted rate and you held you last product for him. Somebody else wanted to buy it at rack price, but you were holding it for customer #1 and then customer #1 decided not to buy it for whatever reason, what would your response be

estnet

And there is NO GUARANTEE that any insurance would actually pay the $$$$ charge rather than the point value!

zachary

So you're changing your point, right? I assume you now concede that under the SPG policy, OP had the right to pay with points instead of money if he wanted to and that the hotel had to accept that. Again, under the SPG policy.

Now you're saying that cases allow Marriott to change the SPG policy. I don't disagree that courts have allowed this. But none of those cases involve changes to the terms and conditions impacting already booked reservations. Marriott has every right to change the program rules before a reservation is made. Afterwards, I don't think that's so clear. For example, could Marriott have told OP that instead of 60,000 points per night, he had to pay 120,000 points per night? They clearly can before a reservation is made, but I don't think any court has ever said that they can after a reservation is made. Lifetime benefits raise a different issue -- the lifetime of what? The person who bought it? The service provider? None of that applies to this situation.

One other thing: This isn't a debate about who would win in court. It's a debate about the right thing to do for a company in the service industry. That's my main point. And AmEx's chargeback process isn't like being in court. There aren't AmEx lawyers sitting around making these decisions. In my experience, they do what's right. We'll see how that plays out here.

MSPeconomist

Gadot

Not conceding. Mathew stated once that the request did not have to be honored and then stated that it did and finally that it was his opinion, not SPG's. Again you never answered my question of what you would do if a buyer canceled a product you were selling him at a discounted price at the last minute - and you turned down someone else's offer at full price because it was the last one.

BUT even though I totally disagree with OP, in the spirit of MFT, I have PM'ed him Mr Sorenson's private email address so that he can address it directly to the boss.

zachary

Wow.

First, the man's name is William, not "Mathew." He's in the top few of the most significant posters here on FT. You ought to get his name right.

Second, you quote him above, early in the thread that I referenced, giving his opinion that you might be right that the T&C's didn't automatically permit someone to substitute points for cash. But later, in post 69, he comes back and says that it's been clarified that the hotel has to take the points if the member wants to forfeit them. That was the final answer from SPG.

Finally, your question about a discount buyer canceling when a higher price was rejected is irrelevant. First, the remedy if a discount buyer cancels is the profit you would have made on the discounted sale, not what you could have made if the sale was replaced with a higher price sale. Second, the T&C's that the St. Regis agreed to when it accepted the original reservation allowed the OP to use points if he didn't show up. Where you and I fundamentally disagree is you think the St. Regis had the right to change the terms after the reservation was booked. Finally, how in the world do you know if the hotel had an offer to sell the OP's room for a higher price? I haven't seen the hotel come on this thread and say that. We have no idea if the St. Regis was sold out that night or not.

I think it's best that I retire from this discussion now. You and I will never agree. If you run a customer-facing business, I hope that I don't accidentally do business with you. We just have different philosophies about how customers should be treated.

cockpitvisit

In this case, my damage would be limited to the discounted price the buyer was offered - because had he taken the offer, the discounted price would have been all that I got anyway. All I lost from him not buying the product is the discounted price he would have paid.

The lost "full price" happened when I sold him the product, not when he canceled the order. The ability to resell the same product at full price was never there.

It's quite surprising someone sees this differently.