NewbieCollegeFlyer

Hello,
I need help. Hotels Tonight is on my side but Marriott is refusing to refund their unauthorized charges. What should I do?

I have been charged by the Marriott Lancaster PA for 2 additional hotel rooms this past New Years Eve when I prepaid for 2 rooms through the Hotels Tonight App.

The Situation:
I made reservation 1 through Marriott App.
- 2 basic rooms for 1 night, Saturday 12/30/2023 to Sunday 12/31/2024

I made reservation 2 through Hotels Tonight App.
- 2 rooms for 1 night, Sunday 12/31/2024 to Monday 1/1/2024

After my stay on 1/4/2023 I noticed too many Marriott points deposited to my account so I checked my credit card and discovered hundreds of extra dollars charged by Marriott to my credit card that should not have.

On 1/4/2024 I called both Hotels Tonight and Marriott. Hotels tonight contacted the Marriott, supposedly straightened out the situation, and gave me a $50 coupon for my trouble.

On 1/23/2024 I noticed I still hadn't had a refund to my credit card. I called both Hotels Tonight and Marriott again. Marriott said they closed the complaint without contacting me because the hotel told Marriott Corporate they had corrected the situation.
Hotel's tonight contacted the hotel directly again. No Resolution. I escalated it to a HT manager, and she put it in writing the situation via email and said they would resolve it.

Now Hotels Tonight is saying the Marriott Refuses to refund my money and they can only pay me back what Hotels tonight Charged me.

So, since Marriott had my credit card on file, I will be out of pocket an extra $ 700 because the Marriott rate was higher than Hotels Tonight,

I don't understand how if I have all the paperwork, 1 night reservation with Marriott, 1 night with Hotels Tonight, prepaid receipts, confirmation emails, etc, how Marriott can just keep my money for 4 hotel rooms.

I asked Hotels Tonight to at least cut me a check for the difference between the Hotels Tonight rate and the Marriott rate. While sympathetic, the Hotels Tonight computer system won't allow them to do that.

I would not have stayed if I knew I was going to be out an additional $700. We only stayed there because of the good deal on Hotels Tonight.

Is this Fraud on Marriott's part?

Is this right morally?
Will this happen to me again with either Marriott or Hotels Tonight? Why should I ever trust either company again with my personal information?

I have already wasted 10 hours of my life on the phone over this, so the time/value of money and my time is not adding up, but i just feel cheated.

Help Please Flyertalk Community.

Thanks

fotoflyer88

Wow. You wrote a good intro post. I hope folks here will be able to help you.

So on some 3rd party booking stays - there’s what’s called a “virtual card” that Expedia/Booking (and probably hotel tonight) is supposed to have charged.

I’ve had it happen where instead, the clerk at a Hyatt, etc charges me by mistake instead of just incidentals.

have you talked directly with the Hotels GM?

What is the difference between rates?

Marriott Bonvoy Lurker II

Dear NewbieCollegeFlyer,

We are sorry for the inconvenience caused by the billing issue. If you can send a private message to us with below information for verification purpose, we will be pleased to look into further for you.

- Your full name
- Your member account number
- The email address associated with your account

Please feel free to contact us if we can be of any assistance.

Best regards,

Carrie L
Specialist Social Media Care
Marriott International
[email protected]

1mileman

i bet the clerk checking in the 2nd rooms wiped out the virtual card and since the card info is gone they charged you before they charged the VCC. Hoteltonight should be able to provide a new virtual card to charge and then refund you after.

AJNEDC

I don't understand: Why are you wasting time here and with Marriott when you have a better alternative? Have you never heard of a chargeback?

Simply call your credit card company, provide all the supporting documentation and tell your credit card company you have been overcharged and you have not received the expected credit. There is no need to waste any further time with Marriott.

SPN Lifer

I was also going to suggest a chargeback, until I saw the post by the Marriott Lurker. They apparently recognize there is an obvious billing problem.

I would be reluctant to share my FlyerTalk details with Marriott.

AJNEDC

Is this billing problem affecting it charging customers or only refunding them? I do not believe in allowing a company a free float on my dime. Consequently, I would have contacted my credit card company after my first reaching out to Marriott and problem not fixed; received my immediate credit and let Marriott sort out its billing problem to its heart content.

NewbieCollegeFlyer

Thanks for the compliment.

I talked to Hotels Tonight Customer Service and Marriott Corporate Customer Service. The actual hotel is a brick wall. They are even telling Hotels Tonight that they refuse to charge the HT card.

I do have an email from Hotels Tonight confirming I did have a prepaid reservation, but its just like the poster had at the Hyatt, they charged my credit instead of just incidentals. However, the Marriott Lancaster is refusing to resolve the matter.

The Marriott rate is more. However, I had a couple hundred dollars worth of Hotels Tonight Credits as well that I used in addition to my card on Hotels Tonight. So if Hotels Tonight issues the refund, which I refused, then I will be out of pocket. Also the Hotels Tonight Credits will expire in 90 days. I have zero intention of using Hotels Tonight in the next 90 days.



The time I've already invested in this far outweighs the Value.

I'm Hilton Diamond and Platinum IHG. I had hopped to switch my loyalty to Marriott (only Gold.) However, if this is Marriott's antics, like overcharging, promising resolution without delivery, and closing complaints without even contacting me, then I might need to pass on Marriott.

In non related news, I signed up for Hyatt rewards and stayed my first 2 nights in January 2024.

I will not risk my personal information with Marriott until this is resolved.

Thanks for the input. It is good to see that this travel agent credit card thing has happened to someone else.

Was your Hyatt situation resolved?

NewbieCollegeFlyer

Hotels Tonight Tried to get the Lancaster Marriott to charge the Hotels Tonight credit card, twice, but the Marriott Lancaster Refuses to do so.

NewbieCollegeFlyer

That is exactly what Marriott is doing. Floating money on my dime. They have the money for 2 extra rooms that they get to play with for a month while I pay the interest.

That is why I'm not letting this one go. The Hotel straight stole my money. Even once they refund my transactions, what about all the time I wasted attempting to resolve this, post to flyer talk, and other social media. Plus what about the fact I couldn't use that money for a month or the interest I have to pay on it.
Hotels are supposed to be for convince.

The convince of the 10 hours I spent in this hotel room on New Years Eve is not worth the 12 hours of headache spent resolving this...

iknowthings

FWIW, Hotel Tonight is not an approved OTA for Marriott (nor Hilton, but that's for another forum!). They cannot interface with Marriott's reservation system, and therefore cannot make Marriott reservations.

There are two ways this can be circumvented. Either the hotel is going rogue and manually inputting reservations from HT that are faxed/emailed to the hotel, or HT is using Expedia's platform to book reservations. There exists no way that HT itself can directly book with Marriott.

1mileman

In my time with marriott, we used to get these faxed and we had to manually input the reservation so obviously this hotel is not doing this correct.

1mileman

Just file a chargeback and let the cc company handle it. you have all the proof you need.

jayer

Chargebacks are not as painless or prompt as they used to be. They are not as automatically resolved in your favor as they used to be either.

I'm not quite sure I understand the apparent reluctance to let the Marriott Lurker try and sort it for you. They have volunteered. It might even work. You would not be giving them any information the hotel does not already know. (Years ago and a less complicated situation, but they did somehow push down a correction on a hotel for me).

But if you are determined to skip that step and go directly to chargeback; there are some details you may need to gather while you still can. You will need the same information if you let the Marriott Lurker try. Maybe you have already done so; but if not:

Do you have copies of all four room folios? I at least hope you do rather than a single combined folio. You need to be able to isolate specific transactions by room.

If you don't have those hopefully you can pull the folios off your Marriott account.

Even more than that I hope they put through four different charges, one for each room, so you can isolate which rooms were paid twice. (If they didn't you will have much more trouble explaining the chargeback to your card issuer).

With both of those things you can cleanly document what may be two different chargebacks for duplicate payments.

You seem to present yourself as a younger traveler. Most of us on this board are cranky old people who have made mistakes and gone through a few negative hotel stays. We can make suggestions based on years of experience. I have four for you today going forward:

• Avoid fourth-party grey-market booking channels. Most of us avoid even using well-known third-party OTA's. Or anything that involves pre-paying a vendor other than the hotel or Marriott. This is the kind of stuff that happens.
• If booking pre-paid rooms, and most of us have been burned once and don't, put the incidentals deposit on another card. Or decline another card swipe.
• Nothing beats getting paper folios for documentation as you leave, although I realize it isn't always practical or possible.
• Not saying it would have worked for you, but before I swore off OTA's, having a copy of my third-party booking saved me from a double-payment.

Hope it all works out for you.

MePlatPremier

As per your own report on this thread, the hotel did not double charge you for the same rooms. The hotel charged your card for your stay and so did hotelstonight.com for the exact same stay.

Your money is with HT, as the hotel does not want to charge them for those rooms, for whatever reason (most probably because HT booked you on an unauthorized FIT wholesaler rate).

Claiming Marriott is floating your money around is not only inaccurate as it will probably make it harder for you to get this sorted out. In any event, HT appears the culprit as most likely they sold you a rate they did not have access to. It’s not so different than when someone books a corporate rate they’re not entitled to - the hotel will charge the ongoing rate.