Wife hadn't decided on which one yet. So the boss lady gets what she wants until she can settle on something.

Lucky for you or not, she chose the W.

I released the westin and StR for 12/23-12/28.

Good luck,

I think the hotels blocking rooms also has something to do with the "points advance" option at Marriott. the hotels probably don't realize that the probability of cancellations given points advance has gone up (and they probably also don't realize that people are booking without points in the account). I do sympathize with the hotels reacting by blocking rooms knowing Marriott won't enforce the no-blackout dates policy.

I actually quite liked the old "you need to have the points to book" policy at SPG, that came with real no BS no blackout policy. Love the days when SPG made the hotel open up inventory when the hotel played tricks.

Interesting. Doing some award night searches in 2019 and it has beach villas for 60K/night but Fabulous Overwater Villlas for 270K/night!!! A 5-night stay is showing 1,290,000 MR points lol. Is this the new rate from the previous 85K/night? Feel like that's higher than even the St.Regis OWV award rate. If you can pay a cash upgrade, that's a far better deal

Has anyone had their stay and points post from their award stays? I submitted a missing stay request with receipt and only got some tiny amount in points. I'm going back and forth now with their offshore team who is being unhelpful. All my dining should be earning me 10 points per USD plus the elite bonus.

Also wondering if I should get points for the seaplane. After all this hassle I think I should :).

Will calling in help? Normally, this submit missing stay request works fine...

My recent overseas SPG stays have been posting ridiculously late -- like 10-13 days after the stay. But yeah I've also had bad experiences with ancillary spend not posting correctly if I submit a stay for manual processing, so personally I'm going to wait it out on my W stay and hope it posts eventually. If you've already manually submitted, you are in for a tough road getting the points for the ancillary spend ... I'd suggest calling and asking for a supervisor maybe, or perhaps going to the FT lurkers.

That said, I don't think you're supposed to earn points for the seaplane spend.

increased fees to points reservation
 

I have a reservation for February for 5 nights. In reviewing the reservation today, the amounts in fees has jumped from 1010 USD to 2107USD
Resort Fee : 60
Destination Amenity Fee: 848.22
Local Fee: 980
Taxes and Fees: 219.39
Total:2107.61

Has anyone seen this change as well? I am aware of the 475 pp charge for the seaplane, but this is another unannounced change to the cash payment required which is obviously concerning.

Same increase in fees on mine for April of around $1000. My flights are non refundable, so they have me over a barrel. Wonderful.

The avenues for contact are the email [email protected] or trying [MENTION=10904]spg[/MENTION]assist on Twitter.

If fees can just be inserted into confirmed reservations then my business with Marriott is done. I will burn my remaining points (crossing my fingers no other reservations change in the meantime). I don't even see how this is legal.

I alerted Gary Leff on Twitter (who got involved with Al Maha changing their points reservations and ultimately escalated to Marriott). He says it's a mistake but at least he's aware.

Immediately after he responded [MENTION=10904]spg[/MENTION]assist asked for more details, so I've shared. Their response back to me has been: We will connect with this resort and have them reach out to you by email for more infomation[sic] about this fee. So I don't recommend taking that avenue, looks like it's best to email the resort.

After the migration I saved my booking so for everyone's reference it is the local fee which has been added. See below.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...f3862a26cd.png
Booking (December)

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...572556c2ab.png
Booking (Now)

Nm. Missed the very relevant last post w the extra extra charge...

Yes, I just did a dummy cash booking and it was showing. Keep in mind your reservation jumped by more than $980 because of the additional tax as well. I wonder if cash bookings have also seen it added retrospectively alongside our points bookings.

I understand (sort of, the fee is hardly clearly defined) if they want to apply this to new reservations. Fine, that's their prerogative. However, adding this on to existing reservations is completely unacceptable.

Has anyone received any word yet back from the W? Nothing on my side. Appreciate it's the weekend so wasn't expecting anything today.

Regardless of what happens, I'm likely stuck with my reservation due to my flights. The points redemption goes from 'great' to 'good' value from this change (about 1.6c per point for me based on current cash rate), but that's beside the point, this is not acceptable. My assumption also is that this conduct would be illegal in most countries, I thought the booking forms the contract between the customer and the hotel, and they have unilaterally changed the terms. Can anyone speak to that?