marlee1421

Marriott hotel reviews seem to have returned with (in my opinion) major flaws. You can no longer search by or see the reviewer's elite status or even if they participate in Marriott's program. This feature was extremely helpful to me in deciding whether I wanted to stay in a given property. The reviews also do not show whether reviewed by a solo traveler, couple or family. This feature gave perspective into the reviewer's interests, mind set and review criteria. It should not have been hard to include this valuable information and I would hope that The Lurker's see this constructive criticism and pass it to the corporate level. My biggest concen is that Marriott's "ivory tower" just does not care.

Tanic

It's known as a bonvOY enhancement.

Horace

It's good to have guest reviews back, but the current inability to see -- and to filter for -- the type of guest is very disappointing.

I'd rather avoid reviews from non-members, such as those don't know the difference between a full-service Marriott and a Fairfield (they're both Marriotts, right?) and who give a full-service Marriott a bad review because of there is no free Internet or free breakfast.

Elite guests are likely to have realistic expectations based on hotel experiences at many different brands. When I'm planning a vacation, I'm especially interested in reviews from elite guests traveling as couples.

Yes, I hope that Marriott Bonvoy Lurker will pass this disappointment on to the decision-makers who control the features of the website.

I hope the omission of this functionality is just temporary.

marlee1421

Very well said!

VSLover

and further the UX is poor in that it is an isolated and small window within the larger window so it is hard to navigate or quickly scroll through more than a few at a time. poor overall!

SPN Lifer

In this context:

​​​​​​UX = user experience
UX ≠ United Express

nmpls

Agreed. I tend to filter just plat-amb, as I want the people with similar experiences and expectations as me. Also useful for determining if anyone really isn't meeting brand standards for elites or massively exceeding them.

747-800i

Marriott 100% does not care. I am Ambassador, and have had nothing but huge mistake after HUGE mistake with every stay this year. The ambassador team will throw some points at me to try to placate me but nothing changes the systemic rot. Hotels are understaffed and the staff they have are poorly trained and simply DO NOT CARE. I am not sure how that can be changed. Almost all the staff with brains, pride and work ethic were older and retired. Younger staff see this as a bump along the way to their inevitable status as centamillionaires, so they are annoyed at the prospect of having to provide service. Not the best outlook for those in the service industry. I remember maybe 6 months ago a concierge at a RC telling me I could just make my own dinner reservations online...really! Thanks! I am familiar with the internet, however if you don't do anything...why exactly do you exist? I expect things will only get worse, since service levels have been in a one way nosedive my entire life.

The Road Goes On Forever

Hotels are understaffed and commensurate to how they were staffed ten or twenty years ago that level will never return. What you're moving towards is the model where there is no front desk, everyone checks in on their device with the parent company's app and with the smart TV in your room you're be able to contact the staff member(s) on site who will be basically roving floats responding on their device to any questions or requests while they are taking out garbage, cleaning rooms/hallways or PM-ing a room, etc. Continued decreased staffing levels are very much by design from the franchisees and the parent company's are more than good with them going in that direction which is why they keep pushing/rolling out further "advances" in technology to help them get there. What can be done about this? Nothing and every major industry player are all moving to the same place.

Basically the system as comprised sets staff and to a degree potential guests up to fail. The parent company's do their little annual or bi-annual QA audits and preach standards except those cost money and have become a lot of lip service. The franchisee doesn't give a crap about standards as those are just extra expenses to incur and it's how far can we squeeze things until we get deflagged.

You get what you pay for in terms of staff. At most properties there are no benefits, pay hasn't moved much if it all during the pandemic while scheduling is all over the place. Why would anybody want to get into the hospitality industry and if you're older, why would you stay assuming that you made it through the great staffing purge of 2020? To a degree you would have to be an idiot.

You're working harder now then you did pre-pandemic to make the same money if you're lucky. It's not in the least that younger staff are annoyed at anything? They just see working conditions and pay rates for what they are...miserable. Will that make you salty quick? Damn right. The rub to that is the parent companies are well aware this is going on but they offer no assistance with hiring practices or pay rates and have no say in the handbook rules of their franchisees.

Can any of this overall be changed? Not likely. It's been trending this way for a long time. The pandemic just sped it up,

EuropeanPete

Worthwhile noting that the above is primarily a US (or at least US-region) issue at the moment. Yes, you see the same long term trends and short term Covid impact elsewhere like the UK, but not to the same degree. In some other countries, this isn’t an issue at all.

However, Marriott’s overall “consumer experience” wrapping around hotels is a total disaster no matter which geography you’re in. Limited recognition, broken systems, non-compliance with the programme, incorrect room assignment, billing issues, missing points, etc.

I’d personally avoid conflating the two, though it must be said sitting here in a moderately priced and generous 5* hotel in Bangkok, travel in the US sounds incredibly uncomfortable at the moment in general. This is all a bit off topic of the review system, but perhaps my point can remind that the reviews are probably not back in a worse format because of the shitshow of what’s going on at a hotel level.

747-800i

This sounds awful. Why should I pay $1,000/night for a luxury hotel when there are no staff to help me with anything, the rooms get smaller, they reduce closet space. It starts to become not at all worth it for luxury leisure travel. As things stand I feel like after almost every stay I feel ripped off due to the lousiness of the hotel. There are still some hotels that go above and beyond and remind you how things used to be, it's almost a cruel reminder of what once was and is unlikely to be in the future.

CIT85

True. Although even EU is highly dependent on city/county and brand? Barcelona Cotton House was wonderful regarding staffing and customer service and experience, whereas Brussels Marriott Grand Place is similar to US Marriott regarding elite benefits for lounge closure (a whopping 750 points per stay, regardless of number of nights).

I usually search for hotel reviews on Flyertalk since most are by elites, but Marriott Bonvoy Forum hotel reviews are not frequent and not as useful as SPG Forum back in the days.

newfbc

Hmm.. I can see reviewer's elite status.. and select what I want to see.. Silver.. Gold.. Platinum.. member.. etc.

Edit - it seems like sometimes you can, sometimes you can't. Some links take you to the 'old' reviews when you can select options..
https://www.marriott.com/hotels/hote...ronto-airport/

Ron.

marlee1421

A small number of the Marriott properties still have the old web site formats and on those you can still see the reviewer's status, but this is the exception not the rule. The large majority of properties show the new format where you cannot see the reviewer's status or what traveler category they fall into. The ability to validate the reviews based on amount of travel to Marriott hotels and what type of traveler (solo, business, couple, family, etc) are important components of the reviews that are now missing.

The Lurkers do not seem to want to respond to the request that they forward these concerns to corporate.