Canceled Award Reservation Reappearing
 

On January 10, 2010 I made reservation for December 11-16 at Sydney Marriott Circular Quay. 140,000 points were deducted and I received my email confirmation which I still have.

On September 6, 2019 I canceled that reservation because paid rates dropped to an acceptable level. 140,000 points were redeposited into my account and I received my email cancellation confirmation which I still have.

Today, December 4, 2019 this reservation, with the same reservation number and dates (Dec 11-16), reappeared in my account and 270,000 points were deducted from my account. To add insult to injury, double the required points were deducted. I received a new email confirmation today which I still have.

I canceled this award reservation again and the 270,000 points were redeposited into my account. I received my email cancellation confirmation today which I still have. I also canceled my paid reservation and booked the Sydney Sheraton Grand Hyde Park instead.

I expect Marriott to follow-up on this with the hotel to insure these are canceled at the hotel level and this doesn't happen again in the coming days or weeks, nor do I get charge a cancellation fee because their system doesn't properly handle reservation cancellations, AND I expect a goodwill gesture from Marriott for this. Perhaps 135,000 points would be appropriate as that is what they tried to charge me double for the erroneously reinstated cancelled reservation. I have emailed Bonvoy Lurker II with this info and the actual copies of the reservation and cancellation email confirmations.

You know I really hate being the guinea pig for an IT department that has repeatedly proven their ineptitude. I have read numerous posts about people being charged cancellation fees for properly canceled reservations, but haven't read one about something like this happening so decided to post this in its own thread as a warning to others out there who may have canceled award reservations so they can be aware of potential problems.

I know this sounds ridiculous and doesn't fix your problem but I've started holding all my points in a dummy award booking far in the future so they cannot be abruptly taken from me for some reason.

A week ago, I had problems with several canceled reservations magically re-appearing shortly before the scheduled date. These were all booked with a credit card. Luckily I spotted them and canceled right before the cancellation deadline. Wow. More lameness from Marriott.

This happened to me as well, I only realized after the stay was complete and we were a no show. The property agreed not to take the points "as a one time exception". I had a cancellation # for the original reservation and somehow it came back to life with the same reservation number, but it's easier to let it slide rather than convince Marriott of their bad IT... Still frustrating to have to deal with.

How nice of them that they "let it slide"? I can't understand how such a large corporation can have such an inept IT system; processes......whatever it is. Just mind boggling. I can see "one-offs" as stuff happens but day after day after day with the same issues?

There’s already a thread on this topic

I called the hotel and spoke with their office and they have assured me that both the award and paid reservations have been canceled on their system. I have not heard back from any of the Bonvoy Lurkers I emailed.

There is a thread on https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/marr...servation.html but that isn't what happened to me. If the mods think otherwise they are more than welcome to merge these threads and re-title the combined thread accordingly.

This is exactly what happened in https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/marr...servation.html.

Cancelled reservations come back alive when property review them close to check in date, usually within one week until day of. Many properties review all reservations a few days prior to check in to clean up room inventory as well as to look for possible upgrades. That's when "cancelled" reservations come back alive. Calling property direct is the sure way to confirm real cancellations. The only difference is that you were charged in points instead of cash.

Marriott IT is still in denial. I filed four complaints, my Ambassador told me I am the only one who has ever had this issue each time. She promised investigations yet I have never heard back from research department. Someone pointed out to me that there are more similar complaints in http://www.flyertea.com/forum-marriott-1.html. I didn't pursue it further as I only have limited understanding of Simplified Chinese.

I received a reply from marriott.bonvoychampion (Bonvoy Lurker's email address) that a case had been opened, passed onto hotel management and they would contact me. We'll see...

Bolding mine. Have her call me. I had to cancel a reservation at the RC Tysons 4 times as it just kept returning. I took the cancelation number each time. Didn't matter. Zombie reservation came back. I called the last two times. No explanation. They would just keep canceling. I did start a thread on it.

Your Ambassador is a MOLA. I would suggest you request someone more qualified and/or honest.

I'm going to be cancelling a reward reservation. In light of your experience, perhaps it would be a good idea for me to call the hotel directly to cancel the reward reservation instead of the website, so I know the hotel knows. Think that might mitigate risk of a screw-up?

So I canceled an award last night and while the points came back and it hasn't reappeared, I did get two cancellation emails, which I found sufficiently weird to warrant noting here. :D

It will only reappear once you've passed the cancellation deadline. (when the hotel reconciles its list of reservations with Marriott's list)

Is this in jest or based on data somewhere?