DonewithMarriott

I am a lifetime Platinum member and just made Titanium status this year. I have been a Marriott member for 17 years, so I would classify myself as a loyal customer and always prefer to stay at Marriott hotels, whether I travel for business or pleasure. I recently made a trip to the UK on business and as usual my company travel agent made the hotel reservation on my behalf. I provided my membership number at check in, received the usual benefits as elite member, however I did not receive credits (or points) for my 4 nights that I stayed in that hotel. After 10 days had passed, I filed a request for missing nights and received an email from the head of Bonvoy program that because my reservation was not through Marriott.com or Marriott reservation I was not eligible for those nights. I have never heard of such a thing and I travel quite a bit, has anyone else experienced this. I am honestly disgusted with Marriott and the way they are eroding away their reward program. I think it’s about time I consider switching my loyalty to a company that might value it. Would be interested to hear other people’s experience.

arlflyer

I'll bite, why not. Who paid for the stay? What channel did the corporate TA use to book the reservation?

And you received a personal email from David Flueck?

hdogan

It's quite likely that you company travel agent booked it through a provider that doesn't earn points/nights. It's *always* been a policy that only rates booked through direct Marriott channels (including most regular travel agents) are eligible. Rates booked through OTAs and sites like booking, kayak, hotels... will not be eligible. There have been reports on Flytertalk of company travel agents messing up and using an aggregator.

BTW, if it turns out it's not Marriott's error, and it is, in fact, due to how your agent booked, are you going to stick with Marriott and change your username, or will you throw 17 years of loyalty relationship down the drain over one unrecognized booking?

williamluk

I think you should find out what rate and channel your corporate TA used to book your stay first. (A lot of Corp TA used booking.com now days). Every chain pretty much has the same policy when it came to booking through OTA. Don’t want you to waste time typing up the same comments in Hilton, Hyatt, IHG ……. etc forums just in case.

Jon Maiman

+1 on checking what rate and channel your Corporate TA used to make your booking. Many of the corporate booking portals; Concur, etc., now intermingle ineligible OTA rates with the direct book rates. You have to be very careful to ensure you book a direct rate rather than an ineligible OTA rate (bookings.com, etc.). Ironically, the OTA rates are frequently identical to the direct book rates. So I am guessing Concur or the Corporate Travel agent must be getting an incentive to steer people to the OTA rates.

Bottomline, I think your beef is most likely with your Corporate TA. Chalk it up to a lesson learned and give very clear instructions to them you only want direct bookings with Marriott (or other hotel vendors) for all future reservations. Even better, if your corporate travel policy permits it, make your own bookings. You will be far more diligent about it than any Corporate TA. Good Luck. YMMV....

P.S. This problem isn't unique to Marriott. IIRC Hilton has a similar restriction on qualifying stays. Not sure on IHG nor Hyatt.



--Jon

Kacee

All programs.

Adding what a complete non-sequitur in the title. Marriott values money.

margarita girl

I'm impressed. All my missing stay requests are processed by what appears to be a customer service centre in India! And they often make mistakes. So do verify how your company TA made the booking. It it wasn't through an OTA (online travel agency), it's very possible that Marriott CS made an error.

The first question they ask when submitting a missing stay claim is "Did you book through a 3rd party website?" Did you happen to click yes when filling out the form?




Welcome to FT. Hope you stick around even though you may not want to with that handle.

Will08

Love reading disgruntled posts by members professing to having so much loyalty on some ones else’s dime. The fact that you don’t know what is and what isn’t a qualifying stay just goes to show how much you actually personally spend with Marriott, 0.

FlyingBeanCounter

Hang in there. At 20,000 nights and 100 years of platinum you will be lifetime titanium!

Oh wait.... even that won't do it.

Horace

DonewithMarriott,

First, welcome to FlyerTalk. Please do not read some of the responses to your post as attacks. Participants on this forum are helpful, but can be quite direct in their responses.

Given your lifetime status and your status this year, you might want to spend more time on this forum. Over a course of many years, I've learned a lot, and I've helped others. Participating on this board is fun, and I consider it time well spent.

There are two possible reasons why your missing stay request was rejected:

1. Non-qualifying. As others have noted, only qualifying stays (as defined in the Marriott Bonvoy Loyalty Program Terms & Conditions) are eligible for points and elite nights. That makes sense. Marriott is willing to pay commissions to online travel agents or to provide points and elite nights to members -- but not both.

2. Mistakes by the hotel and the customer service center. Your Marriott Bonvoy number should be on your reservation when it is made. That increases your chance of a better room assignment. You should not have to show your card to the front desk. It's possible the front desk did not add your number properly, leading to no points or elite nights. And then, it's possible the customer service center incorrectly identified your stay as non-qualifying. In 2021, it took me two tries to have a qualifying stay added. The response to my initial missing nights request was a canned response that only stays booked through approved channels can be counted.

Given that you've reached Titanium Elite this year, I assume that other stays that you booked through your corporate travel department have posted properly. Either your corporate travel department did something differently this time, or you've been lucky with your other business travel reservations.

If it turns out be reason 1, then consider this a lesson learned. Talk to your corporate travel department. Reservations made through an approved Marriott channel should not cost your company more.

Hamingcott

I once accidentally booked a Hyatt through a 3rd party site that was cleverly designed to I’ll similar to Hyatts. Stayed 3 days and got no points because it was booked through them. I think Amex travel is ok book thru and still get your points but not Expedia or some such site.

indogulf

We specifically forbid our corporate travel agent from using any 3rd party site. It's become an issue with NDC and agencies looking for more commissions.

8420PR

Exactly this - corporate TA's can get [significantly] more commission by booking hotels via a 3rd party site so many try to do this. I don't know if that is what happened in this case, and I don't want to rule out a mistake on Bonvoy's part, but it seems the most logical explanation.

BearX220

If OP is lifetime Plat and has favored Marriotts for 17 years, but is now "disgusted" over a single minor incident of missed points due to a stopper well-known to most (e.g., the risk of booking outside marriott.com) and considering "switching my loyalty to a company that might value it," I have three observations:

1. Welcome to the 21st century -- the book-through-us rule is how most of these programs are structured.
2. Bonvoy is not a loyalty program, it's a revenue reward / alternate currency program, and when a chain pays a vig to a third-party OTA or corporate arranger, it takes a revenue hit. If you stumbled into the same Marriott on an opaque Hotwire Express deal, you'd be in the same boat.
3. Wow, pretty fickle -- if I were a Marriott strategist I would probably not go too far to retain this account.

tjk1976

As others have pointed out, Marriott, and Starwood before it, have both always had various elite earning restrictions on stays booked through third parties. What happened to the OP wasn't a "gotcha" surprise. The safest way to avoid being denied benefits / credit has always been to book through the Marriott website / app. Booking any other way is a crapshoot. So it's a bit specious to say they "don't value loyalty" based on the OP's experience. They just value it in specific ways (and not in others).