mikebor

I'm an Ambassador member and I felt that response was rude as hell. First if all, who is he to decide how you get your entitled compensation when they screwed up? That's ridiculous to me. Secondly his statement about no further compensation will be offered was another awful decision. That's also imo very insulting and extremely unprofessional. I would try and speak to the GM about this D.O and make my opinions known. I would also NOT stay at that hotel again, write a bad tripadvisor review and demand to get the $100, not the 18,000 points. That D.O sounds like a complete jerk and I know for me I wouldn't let that go.

Kacee

Marriott points are not cash equivalent. Marriott has now devolved to the point that they feel free to simply ignore the black and white of their published terms and conditions. What a disgustingly unethical company.

The Road Goes On Forever

In the current hospitality environment, I'm not sure why you're so surprised that there wasn't a manager on site. Lots of jobs riffed or consolidated over the past year, people covering multiple properties and/or manager's doing a lot of low level grunt work that they normally wouldn't do. In the grand scheme of things, there are far more hours in the day at the average property where there is no manager on duty/site/available versus when there is one.

I agree that the wording used by the Customer Care office is very heavy handed but they also use that tone because it's not uncommon for people to try and double dip by getting compensation from both corporate and from the property. It happens all the time.

mikebor

Oh give me a break smh.

EasternTraveler

Just to clarify:

The guy said he was Director of Operations and second in command. He was the one that wanted to put me off a few days to investigate. Unlike the, "You must handle while on property" procedure I have been led to believe is required.

The email is from Marriott corporate signed as "Senior Elite Services Marriott Bonvoy™ Customer Care".

Xero

Completely agree. Sadly, companies do it simply because they can. Note that I am not a lawyer and I am just writing my opinion.

I have noticed whenever we we FT'ers analyze TOS of a company, we always interpret the wording in such a way that it favors the company. If there is even a very tiny form of ambiguity, we always interpret it in favor of the company, even if they are the ones that wrote the TOS.

There is a concept called Contra proferentem. In a case of standardized contracts or contracts where the two parties have unequal bargaining power, any ambiguity in the contract should be interpreted in favor of the party that did not write the contract.

Ultimately, however, this is difficult to do. While a person can use Marriott over breach of contract, the amount of the breach is so small in most cases ($200 at most). The cost of filing a lawsuit and getting a lawyer to navigate all of this will cost way more than the potential value.

That was why Class Action suites were a powerful weapon. Sure, the lawyers got most of the settlement money, but it still provided a disincentive to companies to break their own TOS, that they themselves have written.

Unfortunately, Class Action is no longer an option. Marriot's TOS specifically states that Class Action lawsuits are not allowed.

Either the government has to change the law or customers have to vote with their wallet. Until then, Marriott is free to disregard the TOS they've written with no consequence.

HNLbasedFlyer

That is not an uncommon response when they not only consider the cased closed (regardless if you do or not) and they've reached a point they don't care if you move on to another chain or not - you are more less getting fired as a customer. They've made it clear to any agent picking up the case if continuing to press that it is game over.

MSPeconomist

Can a company legally prohibit class action lawsuits in its contract or T&Cs? IANAL, but this would seem like the analogue of a landlord writing a clause into the lease that the tenant will never sue. OTOH, it seems common for contracts to specify the jurisdiction (often the location of their headquarters) for any civil suits.

Xero

(Just a reminder, I am not a lawyer and I am just posting my opinion)

Oh yes they can, and they do.

In 2011, the US Supreme Court ruled in AT&T MOBILITY LLC v. CONCEPCION ET UX. that a company can ban their customers from taking part in Class Action lawsuits baed on contracts/TOS.
(Source: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/09-893.pdf)

Wikipedia is a pretty good explanation about the ruling:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T..._v._Concepcion

Look at your agreements with your cable company, phone company, credit card company, insurance company, etc. They all likely have such a provision.

The Supreme Court went even further. A company can force their customers to handle disputes though binding arbitration using an arbitrator that the company chooses. This means that the company can choose the judge and jury to handle any disputes on a contract/TOS they wrote.

Per its TOS, Marriott is still "nice" enough to allow customers to file individual lawsuits rather than forced arbitration.

Since the Supreme Court used Federal Law as an interoperation, and Federal Law trumps State Law, there is nothing any State can do to override this decision. Only the US Congress to change the law.

EasternTraveler

Sadly that was the first time I have ever had a situation where they did not offer me the choice. My first time bringing it up to a manager. The manager did not want to handle it saying he would have to investigate for a few days, so I made a call to Marriott and documented it all. This was the ONLY communication from Marriott about the matter, verbal or written. It seems awfully heavy handed when first reaching out to a customer, who has never complained or filed a claim in the past. IMHO, I would only add that phrase after at least two or three back and forth messages, or if the customer was consistently writing excessively about the matter.

Ryno1234

Random yet thread related thought: anyone have any guesses as to when US Domestic lounges may start to re open?
1) airline clubs are, for the most part, all back open and serving at least drinks and pre packaged food. Doesn't have to be a hot buffet. Just pre packaged food, bottles of water and soft drinks
2) I'm kind of over the excuse of staffing as being the reason
-most lounges are key card entry only so you don't need anyone there to sign in or out
-it would take one staff member a few minutes every hour or so just to restock the pre packaged stuff
3) this may be a bit of a stretch: but the first major chain that opens lounges back up will benefit from great PR and maybe even see an uptick in elite bookings. I am top tier with Hyatt(Globalist) and Marriott(Ambassador) and open lounges would definitely play a role in my future bookings. May sound minor, but it would.
4) i hope this doesn't become a permanent cost saving measure.

dw

I’m going to be the pessimist here and say not until business travel (and correspondingly near pre-pandemic room rates) return.

Domestic airline lounges are perhaps not the best apples to apples comparison because they are largely a membership based revenue source, whereas at the typical North American Marriott, I’m guessing a very small minority of people actually pay for club lounge access.

WasKnown

Room rates in NYC are pretty much back to normal and many of the true luxury hotels with $1000 nightly rates are getting ready to re-open (ie The Plaza Hotel). Indoor dining is at 75% capacity and likely to go to full soon. Restaurants are packed (some more so than I’ve seen pre-pandemic). Nonetheless, many Marriott lounges and restaurants remain closed.

Adelphos

More lounges won’t reopen until midweek business travel, and corresponding room rates, start to return more meaningfully

1) Lounges are a cost center and usually don’t generate much extra revenue. They must be paid for out of general hotel revenues. Those are still down dramatically in most business oriented hotels

2) Airline clubs are owned and operated by airlines, who get membership fees, credit card fees, etc. Hotel clubs are owned, staffed and run by individual hotels, not the brands, so individual hotels make the decision (and many will keep them closed until the hotel is profitable)

3) Many hotels will permanently close lounges if they are allowed to by Marriott in order to save money.

4) In markets where hotels are staffed by union labor, it is much more expensive to reopen a lounge or a restaurant than it is to open free standing restaurant or bar or something (work rules contribute to this)

dcstudent

It's interesting, after a year+ of pandemic I've fallen into three different areas of understanding depending on the hotel's situation:

1. If a restriction is mandated by local law/regulation then I obviously get it
2. If I'm staying in a hotel with very low occupancy and also paying a rate far below what I was used to paying pre-pandemic then I am also ok with restrictions
3. If I'm staying in a hotel with normal occupancy, and paying rates close to/or at normal pre-pandemic levels, I'll fight for benefits because then the hotel is just being cheap
4. Breakfast is my one exception to #2. If the hotel is selling breakfast they ought to offer one to Plats, Tits, Ambs (although, full disclosure, in many places I travel I'd never eat a hotel breakfast over local options.