boolean64

I just concluded a stay at the ritz carlton reserve in Cabo. If memory serves, "this hotel does not participate..." appeared at the top of the page where the list of available rooms is displayed after you put in your dates. It did not appear in the homepage or the booking confirmation but i definitely recall seeing it (and being annoyed every time i saw it) somewhere in the booking process. I'm sure it was subtle, but it was there.

Ilovepasta

We joined the program at least 20 years ago, and have been using app for I don't know 4-5 yrs? And yes we did agree to T&C's then. And yes we probably do look at at them every now and then (it is about 20 pages of legalese). But if i understand what i'm supposed to do to avoid such a situation in the future, just before i book EVERY stay, i have to go read those t&cs again to confirm which hotels participate and don't (as those t and cs can change at any time and I don't have a photographic memory to even remember exactly what the last version said). That also defeats the convenience of the app (which marriott really pushes) as the tcs dont even appear on any of the booking pages of the app. The way i use the app is i do a search using the city and dates and then pick a hotel from the search results based on price, room type, location etc. but i guess at this point I'm supposed to jump out of the booking and go read the 20 page Ts-and Cs????

I would argue (Marriott if you are lurking here) that is a crazy unreasonable expectation of your customers (particularly those who book frequently). It would seem that the relevant place to put such important information as whether a property participates in your program or not should be on the booking pages of that property, where your customers would come across that information in the normal course of their booking process. Particularly with something like the Ritz Carlton dorado (we as i suspect many of your customers, were not at all familiar with reserve properties, and i think reasonably did not realize that those Ritzs would be treated differently than every other Ritz we have booked in the past). The reserve properties are now included, so no longer an issue for future travelers to those properties, but who knows what other properties might appear in the app in the future that might have this same issue? We travel frequently enough that the booking process described above is too cumbersome to be worth it to use the Bonvoy program...

We pursued it to the best of our ability with Marriott ( talked to about 7 different people). Last call was with their Consumer Affairs department, she said there was no one else for us to talk to -and even if we sent a letter to an executive etc, it just gets routed back to their department. The whole process of trying to get a hold of customer service reps/supervisors to try to get this resolved was incredibly time- consuming and frustrating too (and yes we did start with the Platinum Elite service line).

Thanks to all of you for your (in most cases&#128540 helpful comments and words of support! Though we did not get what we felt was appropriate response from Marriott to this situation (both me and my husband worked in customer oriented professions and are a little amazed that Marriott wouldn't do better by us), it makes me feel a little better to warn others so they can hopefully avoid the unpleasant surprise we had with Bonvoy after our trip.

We are in the process of finding other (non- marriott) hotels for the 4 future trips we currently have booked. Hoping to be able to do a status match with another program so not starting from zero. We will let the flyer talk community know where we eventually land and if we find that program's customer service/appreciation is better. I have been a lurker myself on these pages for several years, but this is the first time my motivation to post something has overcome my natural tendency to avoid sharing info on blogs/social media. But I have appreciated this interaction and I'm going to enjoy becoming a much more frequent contributor to this community and perhaps others!

One last note - someone changed the name of this post? Weird as it is my post and though someone else might think it is just about non- participating hotels, i thought it was also about the app as the ts& cs (marriott's argument) do not appear on the bottom of each page in the app as it does on the website, so in my opinion that argument particularly does not work for users of the app. So anyone can change the name of an OPs post if they don't like or agree with it?

Kacee

I have always seen same for nonparticipating properties. I could understand where someone could miss that warning, but I'm afraid travel booking these days is very much caveat emptor.

Ilovepasta

You guys will just have to trust me that that warning was not there for us when we booked the ritz dorado, which is my main issue. I have seen where it appears in hotel bulgari, design hotels listings and was not there for ritz carlton dorado. I was in out of app several times, looking at ritz carlton dorado pages/ trial bookings in the period before our trip as I was trying to secure another room for a family member if rates dropped. I'm a very detail oriented person (if you can't tell from my previous posts) and I did not "miss it." Marriott never once said to us " oh it was on there and you missed it," in fact several of the customer service reps we first talked to acknowledged there was no way we would have know and it was "unfair" but they didn't have the power to do anything so kept passing us off to someone else. At the end the supervisors relied on saying, " it was on "t & c's". Our big issue with Marriott Bonvoy is that they in the end were not willing to remedy a situation that their own people could acknowledge was unfair, for long-time, loyal customers who have spent a lot of money with the brand over the years. Bad customer service and in my opinion badly run business.

Btw, on the same trip (must have been a little jinxed), we had an issue with our flight back. I finally got around to calling customer care at Delta this morning to deal with it. It was a night and day contrast (my husband and i are diamond and gold members on Delta). I talked to
one person, she dealt with it immediately and resolved issue in a manner that was more than fair with us. They demonstrated that they did value us as loyal customers and gave me hope that it is possible to still receive good service in the travel industry!

kilo

Thread titles can only be changed by Moderators. Typically this is done so the title better reflects the issue discussed in the thread.

SPN Lifer

By pressing the little triangle in the bottom left corner of the original post, any FlyerTalker can request a moderator to retitle the thread.

TerryK

That's just a request. Only Moderator can change thread title if the request is approved.

summersun

Company paid a steep price for 3 executive platinum member reservations at Bulgari in London. Later to be told Marriott does not offer points. This was not disclosed on the reservations site at marriott & not disclosed to our travel agency when booking reservation.
Very frustrated with the hidden disclosures!!!
Address: 171 Knightsbridge, London SW7 1DW, United Kingdom

Do Better Marriott

TerryK

I just tried a dummy booking and got this:

Quote:

Hotel Messages

You need to have a word with your agency.

Oxon Flyer

I found this on the main website, showing it to be "A PARTNER HOTEL" :



And this is how it shows when booking in the app :

randomdude

T&S

there's a looooong list of non participating properties here:

1.2 Participating Properties and Brands

I was also not aware of such list, until I had issues at one Design. They have to be listed on that website to be part of the program.

itsaboutthejourney

Not listed, but not participating in Bonvoy: Renaissance Residences Honolulu (according to the property)

kaizen7

Marriott should add a filter on app search to exclude these non participating hotels.
Or
Put them at the bottom of the list separate from participating properties.

All of them only put small notes about their non participating.
Won't be surprised if many people missed them and book these hotels thinking they are participant.