I have a booking tonight at the Austin Southpark Hotel. I received a call this morning from the hotel informing me that they do not have any hot water and the hotel's F&B are inoperable. They offered to allow me to cancel for free. The problem is that Austin is having a big citywide event right now and booking somewhere else is fairly expensive right now (at least at a full-service property). Essentially the hotel cannot offer me what I signed up for. Are they not required to offer me comparable lodging elsewhere? Am I entitled to anything under Marriott's terms? FWIW I'm a Titanium.

this is not a walk since you need to physically be at the desk to check in.. You can probably ask them to reach out to other marriotts and see if they will match your rate at least.

A guest is walked when they arrive at the hotel to check in and the hotel is unable to provide them with a room (typically due to overselling). If a hotel is able to notify you in advance of your arrival that they aren't able to accomodate your booking, that's not being walked.

The applicable benefit is the "Ultimate Reservation Guarantee" which is covered in Section 4.3 Elite Membership Benefits at Participating Brands of the Terms & Conditions (emphasis mine):



Did you check in via the app in advance? I don't know what happens when you've already checked in online so this might not be relevant, but perhaps someone else here will know whether being checked in online is equivalent to "arrival" at the property.

They�re doing the right thing about warning you. It does not sound like they have walked you in that they�re willing to let you stay there without hot water. Since you can�t find someplace else, you might consider asking for a discount, but I don�t think you�re going to get a walk because of that.

The Courtyard right by your hotel is $222 tonight. I would just book a room there, email the Southpark to let them know that you had to pay $x extra to stay at the Courtyard, and request a reasonable amount of points (10-15k?) for the inconvenience.

The CY happens to be rated much higher than the Southpark on the Bonvoy app, too, for whatever that's worth.

I had a similar experience at the TPS SAN a couple of years ago, I got an email or phone call a day or two before that they would not have electricity from 2200 - 0800 the next day. Other hotels with shuttles were easily twice as expensive (or twice as many points - I think this was an award stay). She said if I wanted to stay anyway, they would give me points, and I think I received just under half of the points back after I checked in as compensation.

Luckily I was able to function using a couple of power banks and took calls from my phone instead of my computer. I suppose in my particular instance if there were no hot water, I could heat up water on the stove since it was a TPS and the room had a kitchen (and I could light the stove with a match if needed). At a Courtyard in central Texas, however, I'd probably be asking them to assist with an alternate booking.

-J.

Get half the points back if they shut off the power from 22:00 - 08:00, sign me up as I will be sleeping!!!

Perfect for me, less ambient light all around, just give me a glow stick or 3 to put in the bathroom so I can find the toilet at 3 AM!

Or use one's cell phone as a flashlight.