charlesonmission

What did the agent say when you told them the other agent said to initiate a charge back. Honestly, it seems to be hard to get someone that understands what is going on (I'm very surprised they said to you to initiate a chargeback). Marriott never formally responded to my wife's case to say they made a mistake. Her account is still locked as of now. The social media team here tried to get the relevant team to respond, but no one from Marriott ever responded and it has been about 3 week's now (and she has the new issue of the account being under audit for a second time)

I'm thinking of asking my wife to email one of the Marriott executives tomorrow based on Elliott.org's page. https://www.elliott.org/company-cont...ntact-details/

Does anyone have any other ideas?

Honestly, I'm regretting not just taking the loss of $437 for 35,000 points at this point.... this is getting to be beyond ridiculous.

UA-NYC

Vote with your wallet...the grass can actually be greener

HHonors OUTSIDER

At this point I would slow down and wait until the account is unlocked. Most of their customer service is a train wreck to a level that I didn't believe was possible.

oskidunker

Thats what i did. I am done with Marriott.

charlesonmission

The social media team was able to get my wife's account unlocked for a second time. If you haven't heard from them in a while, I'd say follow up because they did respond within 12 hours. The key thing is that she basically had to say that she wouldn't initiate a charge back again. As had been noted above, I would never recommend anything do a charge back unless it is a last resort. This was not how Amex explained it to us (they said the charges were just blocked as fraud).

She was able to update her stay for next weekend, so the account is working again.

As far as I'm aware, there was no apology offered to her and any points as a goodwill gesture of having to go through this.

Best wishes to everyone out there.

echino

Bonvoy account still locked, no communication from Marriott whatsoever. Looks like the Bonvoy account is permanently locked.

charlesonmission

Did you email the social media team in this thread? They seem to respond. My guess is that your case is in some sort of massive backlog and it could take months for them to go through. I think the team here can move it forward like they did for my wife.

FYI, in case anyone is going through this, a couple things to be aware of. Points for stays were not credited during the time her account was under audit. She emailed the hotel about this, but no response (from a couple weeks ago). If your card was cancelled and you used that card for a reservation, triple check that the hotel updates the card for incidentals. She just had a stay where even though she gave a new card for incidentals, the hotel tried to charge the old cancelled card for nights 2 and 3 (which were on separate reservations).

grlnextdoor

This happened to me twice! Disputed 1x with my CC and got a refund but locked account. Was able to get my acct unlocked. I just emailed [email protected] to try to get a refund for the 2nd one. I am so over Marriott and their customer service.

echino

Account finally unlocked after almost two months and many hours on hold.

The worst thing is Marriott Bonvoy refused to admit it was their IT error. The way they insist it happened, is I willingly bough the points and agreed it was non-refundable, but then proceeded with a charge back. There is a note on my account that if this happens again, my account will be deleted without any recourse.

UA-NYC

Vote with your wallet

donotblink

That’s insane

zappy312

A similar issue happened to me, I was playing around with an award booking that had FNAs attached but the price dropped. Pressed confirm changes and points were automatically purchased for the stay. Thankfully I called and got a Bonvoy agent who knew what they were doing so they sent off an email to the relevant department who had the point purchase reversed and refunded. I figured a chargeback would lock my account, so dealing with Bonvoy was a better way to go... Such a brutal system.

charlesonmission

Here are my thoughts after like you having spent many hours on the matter for my wife.

1. Marriott staff are likely trained to not admit fault for anything, including errors. I think they just are trained to never say anything that could open up HQ to need to give courtesy points or anything like that.

2. Once there was a chargeback, Marriott has a process where the customer has to say they won't do it again. There is no exception for the issue being Marriott's fault.

3. Gary Leff, who has some sort of contact with Marriott, did get a response from Marriott that they are aware of the issue. "Marriott tells me this is a known issue, that they’re working to fix it, and to reimburse members that were improperly charged. Specifically, “A fix will be implemented sometime next week beginning with the website where the majority of these bookings occur.” https://viewfromthewing.com/marriott...-certificates/

4. I think for an actual apology or courtesy points for all of the trouble, we would have to communicate with Marriott's Executive team and hope that someone picks it up. I haven't done this, but if anyone does and gets any sort of response, please post it here.

5. Learning experience. Always lock the credit card for any point/cert reservation. Screen record 100% of Marriott reservations.

6. The core issue as far as I can see it is that Marriott is just a huge company and they aren't customer centric as the individual customer level if you view us as the customer (I get that the consensus now is that the franchisees are the customer and we are the product). We have had great stays at Marriott properties (and Marriott Vacation Club which is now a different company). However, at the HQ/Bonvoy level, they just have millions and millions of people booking stuff. Many people here and in other threads post that Hyatt is must more customer centric, but Hyatt just doesn't work for a lot of us due to where we stay. Hilton is known to give courtesy points for issues and say sorry, but I just don't think that is part of Marriott's corporate culture. Some of us like the Marriott properties better than Hilton (we stay at both). When Marriott released the peak pricing, I had a reservation early on in the first week of the implementation. The property upgraded me as a lowly Gold Member which somehow caused me to pay 2,000 more points for peak pricing. Hotel said they can't do anything, contact Marriott HQ. I submit a case, after some back and forth where even after I attached the PDF of the reservation which showed lower points, the agent said as a one time courtesy, we will give you 2,000 points (mind you, the 2,000 points were from my actual reservation). If you think we live in a crazy world, there you have it. I don't think we can change this. Maybe at some point the culture will change, but I'm not sure how people like us can really move the needle. I'm just guessing most people don't care about the 2,000 points or don't look at their credit card statements or just take the loss (which I wish I had done in this case).

Anyways, if there is anything else we can do, I'm open to ideas. However, my wife did get back from a Marriott stay at a Residence Inn a couple weeks ago and again, the actual stay was great. We have a weekend booked for the Ritz later this month. The actual staff at the Ritz have always been super great to us.

m.photog

I was trying to use a 50K cert last week and somehow ended up with points deducted from my account like an ordinary points redemption. It might have been my error but a quick call got the problem resolved with no trouble.

echino

Yes, that's what happens with this IT error. But if you don't have sufficient points in your account, then points are automatically purchased without your consent or any warning. Marriott refuses to acknowledge or fix the problem. And if you make a charge back on your credit card, then your account will be locked (a long and difficult process to unlock it, listening to stern talking from Marriott blaming you for their error), and on the second occurrence your Bonvoy account will be deleted, all reservations cancelled, points and certificates forfeited, without recourse.